Regina Aeterna
by ThereBeDragons17
Summary: Reyna's voyage, from Circe's Island to Camp Jupiter, through Blackbeard, parting ways with Hylla and meeting Jason Grace. T because it has the potential to be mildly.
1. Prologue

**A/N: I have never purposely attempted a multi-chapter story before, so who knows how this will go. Wish me luck! Also, excuse my Spanish! I felt like the language would be a big part of Reyna and Hylla's lives, but I haven't studied it for very long. I sort of cheat by using only short sentences, but if there is a grammatical issue, sorry!**

 **Also, this chapter is more background than actual plot, meaning it's more boring. This is sort of a character-study chapter.**

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Perfect Hylla.

Perfect, perfect, perfect Hylla. It made her sick, how her older sister could do no wrong, how it didn't matter if she made any accomplishment because Hylla had probably already done it anyway. If she won, well then, that was to be expected, because after all, she was Hylla's sibling. If she lost, then she was a disappointment. There wasn't a way for her to come out on top.

Reyna scowled up at the sun but only got bright spots dancing across her vision as a reward. She resolved to simply kicking the surface of the pool angrily, but the little splashing sounds just sounded childish, so she stopped. What she wouldn't give to get away from her older sister. Hylla looked at her every day and saw a little kid. The spa attendants looked over her. Circe looked right through her. She was invisible until she tried to prove herself, and then everyone stepped on her for being out of place.

There wasn't even anyone at the little pool she had seated herself by. Half a dozen empty sun chairs faced the clear water, stacks of towels folded perfectly between them. Reyna would know. She had folded them, and technically she was supposed to have returned to her superior ten minutes ago. She wasn't sure how much longer she could pretend to still be folding towels. When motivated, she could do the chore in under five minutes. She just had to hope that none of the other attendants knew that.

She had been stranded on Circe's island for months. Well, stranded was perhaps not the most apt definition. She was being held against her will, but only because Hylla idolized Circe and was far too engrossed in her studies as a sorceress to think about leaving.

"We're _safe,_ Reyna," she'd say, attempting to be convincing. "After everything that's happened, can't we just safe?"

Reyna knew better. Demigods did not get peaceful lives. Especially not daughters of Bellona. But Hylla seemed to have forgotten her heritage; she had given up learning defense and increasing her stamina for sorcery. Reyna didn't like the magic. It felt unnatural to her. It felt wrong. If she was going to fight, she'd rather use a longsword than colorful sparks.

Reyna knew that Hylla's power, like Circe's, like all of the attendants, was connected to her wand. It was a strip of light wood that looked totally and completely mundane, but without it, so was Hylla, for the most part. Not that she could do much magic, and not that it was useful.

She remembered Hylla demonstrating her newest spell three days ago. She had levitated an orange across the countertop of their tiny, shared apartment.

"You could do that by walking," Reyna had noticed.

"What if I was on the other side of the room?"

"Then you'd walk five steps farther."

Hylla had shot her an ugly look and retreated to her room.

Reyna decided that she had spent as much time as she could afford sulking by the pool. She wanted off the island, no matter what Hylla thought, and her only setback was that she didn't have a place to go or a map to guide her there. She had worked various forms of motor-propelled boats when was still in Puerto Rico, so she was confident that she could get one of the crafts docked at the ocean to work, but with no living family other than Hylla she didn't have a direction to head in.

Speaking of Hylla.

The elder daughter of Bellona was strolling up the paved main walkway, chatting amiably with the two demigods beside her. Reyna sighed in sympathy. The blonde-haired girls should be fine, and Circe would take a liking to her immediately, but the black haired boy… Reyna was against turning men into guinea pigs. Hylla appeared fine with it, but she was so different from when they had arrived that Reyna couldn't tell if it was truly her sister's opinion or Circe speaking through her.

"Remember Señor Aiza? Remember papá?" Hylla would try to convince her. "Men have never been good to us."

"What about Gomez and Juan?" Reyna would point out, remembering two of their best friends from home.

Hylla would wave her hand dismissively. That was how much memories of their home meant to her— they weighed so little in her mind that she could brush them away like feathers.

Reyna remained downcast as she trudged up the maze of walkways to the Staff Entrance. She didn't like the cobbled pathways, lined on either side with palm trees and stubby plants. The cobblestones were fake and the plants were too cultured. San Juan had nice streets and nice trees. The colorful houses added life and culture, not the impression of an American movie set. After living there for all her life, Circe's island felt like a rip off. Reyna never understood why the guests _ooohed_ and _ahhhed_ at the fountains and the cabanas.

Miss Becca had seen right through her, Reyna knew as soon as she entered her employer's presence. Miss Becca had never liked her. Part of it was because Reyna struggled with her name. It was English, but Reyna spoke Spanish natively, so upon meeting her Reyna had pronounced the 'b' in her name somewhere between an American b and v. It was just her language. It sounded prettier Reyna's way, anyway, but Miss Becca hadn't liked it. So she had switched to calling her Miss Rebecca, but Miss Becca didn't like that, either. She had, to Reyna's humiliation, assigned her a tutor to teach her "Proper English", while Hylla had looked on in disapproval.

Reyna was still fighting that fight.

"It does not take anyone on this good green Earth half an hour to fold six stacks of towels," Miss Becca snapped, looking annoyed and tapping her foot. She looked only about twenty-six, but people didn't seem to age on Circe's island, and Reyna had never been "impertinent" enough to ask. In Miss Becca's words.

When Reyna had first come to the spa, her payment had been "pool time", meaning that she got to swim for about an hour before the luau. It had been a meager award. Reyna much preferred the ocean to the pool, mostly because spending time floating in stagnant water had never been very appealing. Now Miss Becca didn't bother with "pool time" but with free time in general. The sloppier Reyna performed the tasks, the less free time she was allotted.

Miss Becca looked pissed enough to dock Reyna a whole hour of free time, but she was saved- surprisingly- by none other than Hylla.

Her older sister poked her head into the room and Miss Becca turned her attention to her instead. Sometimes Hylla's much greater presence worked in Reyna's favor. More often it didn't.

Hylla and Miss Becca exchanged a few quiet words before Miss Becca backed off, looking mildly disappointed. Hylla grabbed Reyna's arm and dragged her from the room, clearly excited. Reyna knew that as soon as they were out of Miss Becca's hearing range, Hylla would confide in her.

"There's a new girl," Hylla exclaimed, just when Reyna thought she'd burst.

Reyna nodded passively. "Ví." _I saw._

"She's very smart," Hylla continued. "Circe adores her, and they've hardly met…"

 _I wish she adored me,_ Reyna thought grumpily to herself, but she didn't say anything.

"They're giving her a makeover now. You're going to do her hair, okay?"

Something about the way Hylla said it ticked Reyna off. She acted like she was talking to a child, speaking a little slowly and pronouncing every word carefully. She didn't want to be doing anyone's hair. She didn't want to be applying make-up or doing her nails. She wanted to learn how to fight. She wanted to run a race. She wanted to turn back time to a year ago when she and Juan had torn down the streets of San Juan toward the beach, both with every intention of beating the other.

"Yo no deseo—"

"Speak English, Reyna, we aren't in Puerto Rico anymore," Hylla reminded her impatiently. Reyna scowled. She could speak English perfectly, after four months of strict tutors, but she still preferred Spanish. She wouldn't speak it around the others, but she didn't understand why she couldn't use it in private with Hylla.

Then Hylla was shoving her through a door that opened onto a veranda and her older sister had swept away again.

Reyna pouted at the door for a second before turning to the girl seated in the middle of the veranda. It was indeed the blonde Hylla had led up earlier. She was younger than Reyna had thought; she was about her own age.

"Hey," the girl said amiably. "I'm Annabeth."

Reyna nodded but stayed silent. If there was one thing she had learned over her many months stuck on Circe's island, it was to not speak unless asked to.


	2. Capture

**A/N: Normally I won't be a good person and update this often, but I had the chapter ready to go, so I figured sooner was better than later.**

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Reyna was not where she should have been when the alarms went off.

She wasn't even near where she should have been. She was supposed to be preparing for the luau, which probably meant toting plastic cups and decorations around from pool deck to pool deck, but she had found an opening. She had been asked to voyage into the storage room in search of inflatable plastic palm trees that floated on the pools and doubled as drink holders, but she was stalling under the pretense that she couldn't locate them. She was purposely ignoring the large wooden crate that was labeled, 'INFLATABLES'.

The storage room was a large, underground basement with concrete walls and floors, and was completely abandoned except for Reyna. She took advantage of this.

She cracked open a box of pool cues and pretended to throw it like a javelin. It just didn't work. Despite having never actually used a javelin, Reyna knew that the pool cue wasn't weighted properly. Making it long and pointy wasn't enough; there was a balance to be achieved.

Reyna replaced the cue and glanced around. There— in the far corner, large wooden crates were stacked in a neat pile, almost all the way to the ceiling. It was the perfect climbing course. Maybe…with a running start…

Reyna's fingertips just caught on the top of the massive bottom crate. She heaved herself up onto the small ledge and almost fell sideways when her sandal caught. She ripped them off uncaringly. She had minutes at most before she could stall no longer.

She clambered up the pile box by box, until she sat on the topmost one, ducking to keep from banging her head on the ceiling. She stretched her feet out and knocked her heels together sourly. Too easy. It was too easy to clamber up the neatly stacked crates. She needed more of a challenge. She surveyed the room with her piercing black eyes narrowed calculatingly. The wire shelves were too tippy. The boxes were stacked in formations that made them insulting simple to clamber up. Aside from that, there wasn't much else in the room—

A high pitched wail made Reyna smash her head on the ceiling. The red lights on the walls began to spin and flash. With a deafening screech, the metal door to the storeroom slowly began to lower, accompanied by a staccato _thunk, thunk, thunk._ The alarm continued to howl.

It took Reyna less than a second to work out that she had to move _now,_ or else be trapped in the room.

She launched herself off of the top box and landed on the crate two layers down. Without even properly thinking, just letting her mind run on autopilot, she scrambled down the pile, sprinted across the room, and drove under the falling door with only a foot left. She never remembered that she'd forgotten her shoes.

Before she could stand or even take a knee, someone grabbed her in a rough headlock. She screamed and, thrashing violently, kneed the man where she knew it hurt. He howled and released her, giving her just enough time to scramble away. He was a terrifying figure. He stood over a head taller than her, with an unkempt black beard and shoulder-length, greasy hair. Large rings shimmered on his fingers and his clothes were patched and ripped and patched again. He wasn't armed—luckily for Reyna— but he wheeled around on unsteady legs with a snarl, looking more like a rabid dog than a man.

Reyna ran.

She forgot all of her past desires to fight and to prove herself. She simply fled, pounding up the side street to the nearest pool deck.

It wasn't much better there. The wild men ran around, herding the screaming spa attendants and uprooting the flaming luau torches. They smashed bottles and pulled down the cabanas. They threw chairs into the pool and generally destroyed everything they came across. Reyna knew what they were called in Spanish— _piratas_ — but it had never exactly come up in her English studies. The _piratas_ laughed like maniacs while they pillaged, setting fire to the stacks of furniture and binding the hands and feet of the spa attendants. In the distance, Reyna saw the blonde haired girl and the black haired boy from earlier running toward the shore. They looked guilty as hell.

Reyna made up her mind to follow them and sprinted around the farthest edge of the pool deck, ducking under the arm of one _pirata_ before another jumped in her way. She didn't even think, but grabbed a broken chair leg and hit him in the back of the knee with all the force she could muster. He fell, a surprised look on his face, and she planted a kick square in the back, toppling him into the flotsam-chocked pool. She continued on.

Her targets had disappeared behind a row of hedges, but once she got close enough to see over… she was fast, maybe she could catch up to them…

"Reyna!"

Someone jumped into her path and she slammed into it, sending both her and the other person onto the hard paving stones. _Ow,_ Reyna thought, registering that she had probably bruised her hip pretty badly but pushing the thoughts from her mind. Hylla fought to untangle herself from her sister, looking panicked. "They escaped!"

"Not yet!" Reyna said, mistaking her meaning and fighting to get up, intent on pursuing the two demigods.

"Of course they have!" Hylla cried, grabbing Reyna's arm. "Don't go out there, they'll catch you!"

"Shut—" As soon as Reyna was on her feet she was tackled again, this time by someone worse smelling than her sister. A glint of a gold tooth was all Reyna saw before cloth was tied around her eyes, and Hylla's shrieks were all she needed to confirm her fears. The _piratas_ had caught them.

Knowing that her sister, who had been so strong until their arrival on the island, was screaming her head off made Reyna more unsettled than she would have liked to admit.

Someone hauled her to her feet and Reyna lashed out blindly. All it bought her was a rough slap to the back of the head and an abrasive rope around her hands. The _pirata_ began to march her down the cobbled path. Reyna struggled more, but in vain; she could hear Hylla near her, but her sisters voice soon became indistinguishable from the generally wailing of spa attendants echoing on all sides. Near her, something collapsed with a loud _crack,_ and heat bathed her right side. Smoke told her that something was burning. The _pirata_ 's pace quickened, and the smooth cobblestones under Reyna's bare feet changed to wood. They had reached the dock at the shore of the island.

A large hand closed on the back of her neck and she whimpered. What were they going to do? What were they going to do to her?

There was a distinctly masculine howl and the hand vanished from her neck; it snagged on the blindfold and loosened it. Reyna looked up into Hylla's face, pale and scared but determined. There was a knife in her hands and the _pirata_ lay still on the dock behind her.

Reyna was not thankful.

She was annoyed. Hylla— Hylla who hadn't spent any time training, who had run from the _piratas,_ who had screamed in fright— that Hylla had saved her. Reyna. Who _had_ trained, who _had_ fought, and who had been totally overcome. This was not how things were supposed to work. A large purple bruise was developing on Reyna's pride, and she smoldered in anger.

She glanced up toward the spa, and froze.

It was burning. All of it was burning. As she watched, Circe's private rooms at the top of the island collapsed in on themselves, sending glowing sparks dozens of feet into the air. Cabanas had been torn down, stores raided, walkways vandalized. And it was burning. All of it was burning.

Reyna had never loved the spa. She had never loved Circe, never loved the other attendants. But this… this was true villainy. Years of deceit and hated flamed before her, leveling buildings and destroying the lives of those who lived there. In front of the flames swarmed black silhouettes of people, all either slim women or burly men. The women were cowering. The men were encouraging the destruction. Come sunrise, and there would be nothing left on the island but smoking ruins and singed trees.

On the farthest horizon and shrinking rapidly was a ship, and the two demigods who had fled in guilt.

A blow to the back of the head ensured that she saw no more.


	3. Final Four

The last few months of Reyna's life had been the worst.

She had woken up in _un calabozo_ ; or, simply, a tiny room, one wall of which was wooden, the other three walls of which were iron bars. It must have been in the hull of a ship because there was a steady, pedantic rocking. There was no privacy for anything, except the what was offered by the dark; there were no lightbulbs, flashlights or even torches.

She was not alone in her cell, however. She shared it with three other former spa attendants, one of whom was Miss Becca. Miss Becca had spoken to her when she had first woken up, her tone sounding like, _I-knew-you-were-going-to-wake-up-eventually-because-that's-what-people-do-but-shame-on-you-anyway._ Reyna wondered if she could hit her now that Circe wasn't there. Or was she? The brig had been full of the wailing and crying of other captives. Reyna assumed that they were the spa attendants. There was no way to tell who was there and who wasn't, since she couldn't see them, and two people she couldn't locate were Circe and Hylla.

She couldn't help but imagine where they had ended up, and hope that Hylla wasn't dead. The sentiment didn't extend to Circe.

Hours passed without much variation. There was nothing to indicate whether it was day or night, and none of the _piratas_ came down. It had been unbearable— all of the screaming and crying the attendants put out. Reyna didn't relate. She felt like rolling into a ball and maybe shedding a few silent tears, trying to melt the throb of fear in her chest, but screaming seemed futile. The _piratas_ didn't care. They were probably enjoying it, laughing over a bottle of rum about the distress of their captives.

Then three _piratas_ had strode down the stairs, bringing with them two flickering torches. The attendants had flocked to the bars; Reyna had slipped back. She did not want the _piratas_ to notice her. Nothing good could possibly come from it.

With a _screech_ of metal on metal a cage door was opened; one of the pirates pulled out an attendant; and door was closed again. Reyna didn't know the woman, but she pleaded with the _piratas._ They ignored her. One of the others seized a woman from another cell, closed his hand around her upper arm in a grip like a vise, and the _piratas_ marched their captives above decks.

They had not come back down until what felt like a few days later. The women were not with them. Again they removed two of the attendants from the cells, and again they marched them above decks. Again they didn't come back down. This cycle had repeated for what felt like months.

Now Reyna was used to the general atmosphere of being _en un navío de piratas_ ; she had gotten used to one meal a day, the smell, the rocking of the boat, and having nothing to do for hours on end. No, for _days_ on end. She would have killed to have something to pass the time; a board game, a ball, even a half-used pencil would suffice. But she didn't dare ask. As far as she had seen, none of the spa attendants had tried to debate with the _piratas_. Now they all followed Reyna's lead and shrunk back as far as they could, hoping not to be picked.

Reyna feared for her life. The number of spa attendants had dwindled to seven. She was alone in her cell except for Miss Becca, who stayed so quiet that she might as well not have been there. Their few exchanges always went something like this:

"Miss Becca?"

"What?"

"Who are the _piratas_?"

"Don't worry yourself."

"What do you think they're doing to the people they take with them?"

"I don't want to know. Stop asking questions, this is bad enough as it is."

Reyna stopped at that point, because Miss Becca never corrected her using Spanish and never gave her an answer with any substance.

The door clunked open once again, and Reyna saw the light of the torches through the metal bars draw closer and closer. There was a _screech_ of a door opening and someone gave a short wail of fear. The door banged shut, but the _pirata_ didn't bother to lock it. It was empty, then, Reyna decided. She had seen the cells empty gradually as the _piratas_ selected from their inhabitants.

The other pirate stopped in front of her cell and looked at her and Miss Becca, leering. _Please don't pick me,_ Reyna pleaded mentally. _Please, please, please not me._

The _pirata_ yanked the door open and lunged for Miss Becca, who went visibly pale, even in torch light. Reyna scooted back to the wooden wall as Miss Becca was hauled out of the cell. There was fear in her eyes and Reyna could see it without looking too deep. Miss Becca was very, very afraid, and she was struggling not to show it.

"Reyna! They're not _piratas_."

Reyna's head jerked upright at being addressed.

"They're pirates."

Reyna thought it was Miss Becca who spoke. It sounded like her voice, or at least a tight, terrified variation of it, but the woman the _piratas—_ pirates— dragged from the room didn't look capable of speech.

It was two days later when they came for the last of them. Reyna was one of four girls left, and they dragged them all together from the cells. She caught quick glimpses of other decks as they marched her up a set of stairs, all dark, before they emerged above deck.

Reyna was blinded by the sudden light and screwed her eyes shut. Even through the lids it was too bright. Months spent in near total darkness had unnaturally dilated her irises. Now, exposed to light again with the sun at nearly high noon, they were being forced down to pinpricks. She could hear the laughter of pirates around her, jeering and unfriendly, the kind that came from an unruly crowd or band of drunks. She could almost taste the smell of salt, no longer mingled with more pungent odors. The sound of waves slapping against the hull was more pronounced.

When Reyna could bear it, she squinted at her feet, worried about what she'd see if she looked up. They were still barefoot and pale, paler than she'd ever been. She didn't like it; her skin was normally a warmer color. The boards of the deck were weather worn and salt washed. Raising her head just a little, she could see that she was standing at one end of the deck. The mainmast rose a dozen feet in front of her, boasting an unfurled white sail. A dozen pirates leered at her from beyond the mast, lounging around the deck but clearly interested in their prisoners. Several held dirty bottles. Most had knives, although only two had proper swords.

On the quarter deck, looking down on it all, stood the man who was clearly _el capitán_. It wasn't just that his beard was the longest, or that the most rings glinted off his fingers in the bright sun, or that he was dressed the best; it was the size of his hat. It was a proper pirate's hat, with a wide, folded up brim forked in the front. It was trimmed with gold and somehow managed to stay on his head, despite the winds of being under full sail.

The pirate who had manhandled Reyna up to the deck kicked her in the back of the legs, effectively causing her to fall over. The pirates jeered louder. Two of the other girls were forced to sit and their hands were tied behind their backs. Reyna wiggled her shoulders. It wasn't an especially binding bond. She could, with a little time, work her way out of it.

The one woman who wasn't forced to sit looked nervous. Reyna knew her; she worked one of the larger drink bars and had a limp in her right leg. Reyna had always wondered why Circe had never cured it. Now it was pronounced as the pirate who had lugged her up the stairs handed her a large, dull sword.

Were they so stupid as to give them weapons?  
But the woman looked too terrified to use the sword effectively, and only looked at the pirate in askance. The pirate shoved her forward into the no-mans-land between the prisoners and the mast. She stood there looking like a deer in headlights, her delicate arms barely able to lift the weapon she'd been given.

 _Fight!_ Reyna wanted to yell. _Charge! Attack!_

But the woman stood there looking pretty and dumb.

One of the pirates with a sword advanced from the other side of the deck, and the woman shied away. The pirates let out another unruly cheer. Several took leisurely swigs from their bottles.

"Here's how this is going to work itself out."

The pirates fell silent at the captain spoke, his voice ringing out from the quarter deck, more commanding but no less rough.

"I have the little matter of keeping you all. Which is to say, I can't. There simply isn't enough on this ship to feed all of you pretty ladies. And as much as myself and some of my men would like to… entertain you all, you aren't worth what we'd be sacrificing. So here's my proposal." The captain paused. "We're only to keep the best of you all. The strongest. And _you_ are the weakest of the crop, so you've got a lot to live up to."

Reyna had heard that all her life.

"You're going to fight my number one man. You won't beat him, I assure you, but depending on how long you can stand your ground, you might earn yourself a place on this ship. Begin."

The transition was so sudden Reyna almost didn't notice it. The woman with the limp was even slower than her. The pirate was much faster. In less than a second, he had crossed the ground between them and put his sword to the woman's throat.

The pirates howled with laughter and the captain gave a self-satisfied smile.

"Into the water with her!" He yelled, and the pirate with the sword grabbed the woman around the waist, throwing her over his shoulder like she weighed nothing. She shrieked and struggled, but her had her. In two long strides, he crossed to the railing and threw the woman overboard unceremoniously.

The other two attendants screamed her name, but there was no answer audible over the laughter of the pirates. Another one of the women was dragged to her feet and pushed, sobbing, into the open space.

Reyna blocked out their fight. She was a daughter of the war goddess. She was good with weapons. All she needed was a plan, and she needed it fast.


	4. Earn Your Keep

**A/N: Okay, it's a sorta sucky chapter but there's a better one coming soon!**

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She made sure she was ready when they came for her.

When they hauled her upright and shoved the sword in her hands, she refused to look scared. She lifted the (ridiculously heavy) weapon and stared at her opponent challengingly, as ready as she could be and feeling totally unready.

Her defiant stare was ruined by the single tear that traced its way down her cheek.

She brushed it away hurriedly and barely got the sword up in time to block the pirate's first blow. She had already surpassed the other three women. All three of them had failed to use the sword from the start, and all three had been tossed into the ocean like unwanted jetsam. It made Reyna furious. Not that she had ever felt any emotional attachment to them, but the pirates' disregard to human life just struck a nerve she couldn't identify.

Her opponent—attacker, rival, adversary—looked surprised that she, deemed the weakest of all their prisoners, had done anything at all.

But she had more for him yet.

With a yell, she slid her sword out from under his and stabbed toward his chest. He lunged out of the way and slashed toward her legs. She jumped and whirled under his guard, taking a piece out of his shirt but not injuring him. He stumbled backward in shock.

Some small part of Reyna's brain acknowledged that she was succumbing to her anger, but the majority told that bit to shut up.

The pirate attacked in earnest, and Reyna's burning fuel vanished. Her heart turned to stone. She was inferior—kilometers, miles, astronomical units outmatched. The battle-hardened pirate was more seasoned than an eleven year old girl, and even though she was faster, there was no where to run.

With one quick swipe she was on her back on the wooden boards. The pirate planted a kick in her ribs and stepped back.

The long strides of the pirate captain thrummed through the boards under Reyna's ear. His footsteps were languid, unhurried, and growing closer by the second. Reyna flipped herself onto her back and jumped up, determined to meet the man standing.

The captain kicked her back down and she landed on the deck again, this time in a much less flattering way, although there wasn't really a flattering way to fall backward.

The menacing man loomed over her and Reyna waited for someone to grab her and throw her overboard. No one moved. The captain stared at her, judging her, trying to compute how their weakest prisoner had become one of the strongest. Then he threw something to her.

"Earn yer keep," he ordered, before stomping back toward the quarter deck. "Back to work!"

The pirates all jumped up, dispersing across the deck and tending to the ships, adjusting ropes, climbing ladders and vanishing below decks. Reyna glanced at what the captain had thrown to her. It was an old fashioned scrub brush, the bristles of which were bent from obvious use. She dropped it on the deck next to her and sat up, ribs sore. None of the pirates paid her any attention now, moving around her like she didn't exist.

She stood, and found herself face-to-face with Hylla.

Emotions exploded in her chest.

She was elated that her sister was alive, but against her will she found that annoyance was rising in her chest. Hylla hadn't trained. She hadn't done _anything_ , but here she was! Alive and well, and having past the pirate's test! She felt as though the universe was giving her the finger.

"You're alright!" Hylla gasped, and grabbed her up in a hug. It wasn't tender and Reyna actually found it pretty awkward, but she stayed still.

"You have to work," Hylla whispered to her. "You have to scrub the deck and you have to keep your head down, understand me? You have to stay conspicuous."

Then she was down on her knees, swiping away at the boards with a scrub brush nearly identical to Reyna's. Now she noticed the former prisoners. There were only half a dozen of them, hunched over on the ground or maintaining ropes. One was mending a massive piece of cloth that could only be a sail. All were wearing the tattered remnants of the clothes they had been brought on board in, but the heavy make up had worn off their faces, replaced with dirt and grime.

There were two communal buckets the seven former attendants were using to wet their brushes. Reyna bent down and joined them. She hadn't taken Hylla's advise in a long time, but now she followed it willingly.

The work was back breaking. For most of the day Reyna was on her hands and knees scrubbing one of the multiple decks. It was one of the best chores. When she wasn't being Cinderella, she was cleaning out the cabins on the lower levels, often accompanied by another of the former sap attendants. She noticed that they liked to move in pairs. Unfortunately, because there was an odd number of them, she was often left solo.

They were given what was akin to a proper cabin. There was only one with a few hammocks for the seven of them, but it was better than the hard floor of what some of the prisoners called 'the brig'. The only hours they spent in their "room" were from nightfall to sunrise, trying to chase whatever sleep they could. They were given one meager meal when they woke in the morning, and one just after noon, leading them to spend the nights hungry. It was miserable. But it was better than before.

Reyna adapted to their new life like she had before- without a fuss and without struggle. It was how she had learned to stay alive. She could handle being a slave. She could deal with it, at least until she had the chance to exact some form of revenge. Hylla shared her enthusiasm; she could see it in her sister's eyes when she watched the habits and patters of the pirates' behavior waiting for an opening.

It was less than a month before they had their plan.


	5. An Agreement

_Thud._

The knife was driven deep into the wood of the desk and stayed there, firmly anchored in its wooden sheath.

Blackbeard look at the two of them, incredulity spreading across his scarred face. He made to get up from his chair but Hylla thrust her sword under his chin. The pirate captain was wise enough to stay still.

"What do you want?" He asked hoarsely.

Adrenaline and satisfaction still ran hot in Reyna's veins. Behind her, she heard the banging of the pirates trapped below decks, and the groans of the few they had had to defeat to get to the captain's cabin. The entire crew, outwitted by two teenagers from Puerto Rico. Well. Reyna was technically a pre-teen, but she was close enough that she counted it.

"I want you to free us," Hylla started. "I want you to drop us off on land, and—also, I want first pick from your treasure."

"We," Reyna amended.

"I," Hylla contradicted. They had another silent battle of wills before Hylla looked away. She hadn't conceded, she had just terminated their conflict.

"What if I don't meet yer demands?" Blackbeard pointed out. "What if I just killed the two of ye right here?"

"Good luck with that," Hylla challenged, pushing the tip of the sword more into his beard. "Your men are all either trapped below decks or have had the living daylights beaten out of them. We outnumber you two to one."

Blackbeard squinted at her, trying to figure out how serious she was. "Ye think that if ye had to, you could take a life, kid?"

"I'm a daughter of Bellona," Hylla said proudly. "I could take your life easily."

Further shock spread across the pirate captain's face, but then gave way to understanding, and finally something akin to worry. The captain was too seasoned to show worry, but uneasiness was there.

"I'll meet your demands," he said finally. "I'll drop ye both by the side of the river."

"At civilization," Hylla enforced. "And something from your treasury. Stash. Horde. Whatever you call it."

"That's my money—"

"That's like saying we're your prisoners. If you can't enforce it, it's not yours."

There was a brief pause as Hylla and Blackbeard stared each other down from opposite sides of the desk. Reyna stayed exactly where she was, manning the door.

Finally Blackbeard leaned back and rummaged in a drawer, pulling out a large key and grumbling all the while. He held it up. "They key to my treasury."

Hylla snatched it and barged past Reyna, hurrying below decks to where all the gold and silver the pirates had accumulated was stored. Reyna cast a glance at Blackbeard before following her older sister, slamming the door behind her. Hylla was checking the iron bar slung across the door to the lower levels. When she was satisfied that it was secure, she hurried to the door leading to the more secure part of the ship.

Reyna had watched her sister reduce from a dedicated older sister to a shallow spa attendant, and in the last few months she had seen her grow into a confident strategist. Now her power was inspiring as she heaved up the grating and dropped below the deck. Reyna followed close behind. Using only an oil lamp to light their way, they hurried down the dark hallway. The sound of shouting reached them all the way from the other end of the ship. There was no way to completely quarantine one side; they just had to hope no pirates where guarding the treasury.

They reached the heavy wooden door and found two pirates working at the lock.

"Hey—" one of them started, but Hylla smashed him in the temple with the pommel of her sword. He hadn't even hit the ground before Reyna knocked his friend out cold. Hylla didn't commemorate her— they didn't have time for that— but inserted the heavy key into the treasury door and pushed.

They sight was amazing. It was like a little Aladdin's cave, overflowing with gold coins and glinting in the light of the oil lamp.

Hylla tossed Reyna a bag. "Fill it up."

"No one uses these coins anymore."

"They're still worth something," Hylla pointed out, sweeping money into her own bag with long motions.

Reyna followed suit. The coins shifted and tumbled down the pile like a miniature landslide. They were rough, stamped by hand and off-center. She remembered the story her father used to tell them about their ancestor who had been a pirate, whose spoils had built their house. She had believed him because she had had to. Now she wondered if her glorified descendant had been as repugnant as Blackbeard.

The coins shifted and the light from her lamp caught on something long and…silver. It definitely wasn't a coin. Reyna dug her hands into the coins around dug the object out. It was the head of a silver dog, with dull ruby eyes and teeth bared in a snarl. Reyna examined them and found that they were rotatable. They were also sharp as any weapon she'd every seen.

"Look at this," she called back to Hylla, hoping her sister listened for once. The sound of coins tinkling to the ground stopped, indicating that she had. The older girl moved around to stand by her younger sister.

"It's a dog," Hylla said.

"It's a silver dog."

Hylla rapped on its head. "It's hollow."

"Where'd they get a silver dog statue?"

"How on earth would I know?" Hylla asked, annoyed. "We can't take it with us. Forget it."

The older girl moved away but Reyna continued to examine the statue. She freed a little bit of its neck, but to remove the statue completely would require shifting the entire pile.

"Are you done yet?" Hylla called, but Reyna ignored her.

" _Salve, Argentum_ ," she said, not even realizing what she had said.

"What—" Hylla began.

The ruby eyes of the dog statue glowed like a light was behind them, and the teeth in its mouth spun like drills. Reyna yelled and kept back. The dog jumped to its feet, collapsing the entire pile of coins across the floor, and barked loudly and mechanically.

Hylla swung her sword at its neck but the blade bounced off. The mechanical dog snarled menacingly, then paced in a circle. It seemed confused. Then with a howl it dove into a nearby pile and started to dig, sending the heavy coins flying. The girls threw their hands up to protect their faces. When the barrage of coins ceased, another howl rang through the air. To Reyna, it sounded mournful. Hylla cleared viewed it differently. She grabbed her sister's arm and started dragging her toward the door. "Come on, we can lock them in!"

"Why—"

"Isn't it bad enough that you woke it up?" Hylla hissed. The dog seemed much more interested in its pile than them, but it turned when she spoke. Its ruby eyes fixed on Reyna. Their glow dimmed, and its metal ears drooped.

Reyna broke free of Hylla and drove for the silver dog. It whined and pressed its head against her thigh, baying, looking up at her with pleading gemstone eyes. The object it had uncovered was unmistakably another dog. It had the same eyes and same build, but this time it was made purely of gold.

"You want me to wake him up?" Reyna asked the dog. It didn't reply except for to produce another high-pitched whine.

"Don't you dare," Hylla warned.

Reyna ignored her and knelt next to the other dog. She ran her fingers along its muzzle. Nothing happened. She turned to the silver dog. "How do I do this?"

The dog barked loudly twice.

"Thanks," Reyna muttered, going back to examining the statue.

The silver dog barked again, then barged between the golden statue and Reyna. Its barks nearly burst her ear drums.

"Alright, alright!" she said, and the dog finally shut up. Understanding dawned on her. "You want me to speak?"

"The dog is telling the human to speak," Hylla muttered dryly. Reyna ignored her again. She was getting quite good at it.

"Salve," she said to the dog. It was one of the few Latin words she knew; 'hello'. The statue remained frustratingly inert. "Salve, canis."

"You called the other one Argentum," Hylla reminded her.

"I thought you didn't want the dogs."

Hylla shrugged passively. "We just need to go before Blackbeard gets his crew together."

"Argentum," Reyna muttered to herself. She hadn't known the word before, but now she understood it; 'silver'. "Meaning you're gold. Meaning… _Salve, Aurum_."

The gold dog came to life with a _whrrr_ and barked happily, wagging its tail. The silver dog yipped with joy and the two crashed into each other, tumbling through the scattered coins and roughhousing.

"We're done now," Hylla said. "Come on."

Reyna finally caved and followed Hylla from the room. Hylla purposely left the door unlocked and started retracing their steps back to the upper deck. They left the same way their came: in absolute silence.

There was a _crash_ from behind them and a pair of mechanical barks, and before Reyna could take another step two silver and gold formers wove their way around her legs and looked up at her meaningfully.

"What?" She asked, trying to keep her voice low. The pounding of the trapped pirates was closer than before and the last thing she wanted to do was alert them.

The dogs barked again.

"Shut them up!" Hylla demanded, looking anxiously down the hallway. It was too late. There was a chorus of shouts and cacophony of pounding footsteps as the pirates raced toward them. "Run!"

They raced toward the pirates, hoping to make it to the upper level before they did. They reached the grate. Hylla shoved it aside and swung herself up. Reyna jumped. It was just like the crates in Circe's storeroom, except this time it counted. Hylla extended a hand—

A hand closed around Reyna's ankle and she was thrown back down. The pirates shouted their victory and her escape route disappeared as pirates closed in on all sides. Hylla yelled something, the dogs snarled…

The pirates were suddenly running down the hallway, yelling in fear now. The silver dog—Argentum— chased after them, snarling, a ball of silver fury. As Reyna watched, the dog launched himself onto one of the pirates, dragging him down. The gold dog—Aurum— raced after his partner, determined to join in the fight.

"Get up!" Hylla demanded, and helped Reyna onto the deck. The barks of the dogs and the screams of the pirates faded, to be replaced with wind.

They had left the open sea and were now forging down a river, devoid of all boats except small fishing crafts. Shading her eyes, Reyna could see a two-story yacht far up the river.

"We'll drop you there," Blackbeard said, stomping up next to them. He eyed their bags full of treasure mournfully. "The faster you two are off my ship, the better."

The captain moved away to man the wheel and something nuzzled Reyna's hand. Aurum had returned, a scrap of cloth caught between two of his teeth. Reyna pulled it out and returned to looking at the shore, trying not to be too surprised when Argentum appeared out of thin air next to her.

"Are the dogs coming with us?" Hylla asked, sounding grudging and maybe just a bit jealous.

Reyna nodded her reply.

"At least they don't eat, because they're metal." Hylla tossed her bag of coins at Reyna's feet. "They're putting us down right there."

Reyna looked at where she was pointing. On the top of a hill overlooking the river was a large colonial house with people filing in an rout of it. "Looks important."

"Hopefully, there'll be something there that will tell us where we are." Hylla turned away. "I sure am glad to get off this God damn ship."


	6. Mister President Sir

They had to swim to shore.

The pirates couldn't sail their boat close to the river bank and there were no life boats. Reyna plunged over the side first. The weight from the bag of coins made swimming nearly impossible. She fought to keep her head above water. She wouldn't make it to shore—

Aurum grabbed the bag in his teeth and doggie paddled away from her. The two metal pooches had adopted Reyna as their master, and she had adopted them as her pets. She had had a dog back when she was in Puerto Rico, but there dogs were different. They actually understood what she said and responded, as opposed to the regular dog whose eyes sparkled dumbly.

Hylla landed in the water next to her, and the pirates whooped with joy. Several were nursing cuts and bruises from either the daughters of Bellona or their dogs. There was a _creeeeak_ as the rudder was forced all the way around and the ship's sails caught the wind again, sending it racing up river.

Reyna climbed out onto the bank and wished she could sit down. The hill was at too steep on an incline to do anything other than stand comfortably. Aurum and Argentum padded around her, wagging their tails excitedly. Reclaiming her bag of gold, Reyna scratched Aurum behind the ears gratefully. She wasn't sure if they could feel it with their metal skin, but he leaned into it, seemingly pleased.

Hylla clambered out, just as wet as her younger sister. The dogs weren't as attracted to her as they were to Reyna. Reyna found that immensely satisfying. It was just one way she could prove she was better than Hylla at _something._

"Let's go up toward the house, and see if we can figure out where we are," Hylla said. She made it seem like a suggestion but Reyna knew she didn't have any say.

"Won't people stare if we walk in looking like this?" Reyna pointed out. They were still wearing the tattered Greek-style chitons from when they had been captured months ago, but now loaded with grime and sopping wet.

"The Mist will help if they're mortal," Hylla decided, and started the climb. It was less strenuous than it seemed, once they got past the tree line. They came out onto a drastically sloped lawn, which plateaued to create stable ground for the house. It was clearly the back of the dwelling. A large overhang shaded a porch with chairs arranged in a neat row. A line of people wound out a side door and then back in, directed by a tour guide. Little kids ran across the lawn with their mothers, all dressed for a hot summer day, which it was.

"What month do you think it is?" Reyna asked as they trooped across the lawn.

Hylla paused to consider. "May? June, maybe? We should definitely check."

Reyna stared as they passed a woman in a full pink dress with layered skirts, corset, and lace fan. She was clearly a period actress, and spoke to passersby cheerfully. The smaller children seemed awed by her beautiful attire, and she was handing pamphlets to the adults from a wicker basket, "Her."

Hylla saw who she was looking at and changed trajectory. The woman saw them coming and smiled, her eyes glazed over. The Mist was working.

"Good morning!" She said, smiling. "How are you enjoying your day at this great plantation? Have you just come from the Mansion Tour?"

"Yeah," Hylla played along. "It was great. I was wondering if we could have one of those papers?"

The woman passed her one and Hylla dragged Reyna away toward a small white brick building. She glanced at the flyer. "Mount Vernon."

"What's that?"

"This," Hylla said absently, waving her hand around. "Home and resting place of George Washington."

Reyna's heart jumped. "America?"

"Where did you think we were?"

She shrugged. She hadn't given it any thought, but she hadn't expected America.

"We're in Virginia," Hylla continued, skimming the text. "That's the Potomac River, and Maryland's on the other side… we're not that far from Washington, D.C. That's where we'll go next." She tucked the flyer in her pocket. "Come on."

Reyna glanced around at Mount Vernon. The house was at the end of a large circular green space, ringed by a dirt road that extended away on either side. The main mansion was made from white stone and had a red roof. It had two wings that branched out into clusters of small buildings. Families wound around them, hurried down the road and peeked into the buildings, staring at the historical goodies arranged inside.

"Come on!"

Reyna ran after her sister, following the signs leading to the exit. The plantation was big, green and flowering. If it hadn't been so hot and humid Reyna would have happily spent the day there. As it was she was wet, tired, and hadn't had something proper to eat or drink in months.

They ran out the front gates and found a cab waiting by the curb. Hylla jumped in the back.

"I'm waiting for some'un, miss," he said around the cigarette in his mouth.

Hylla pulled a single coin out of her bag and held it out to him. His eyes widened. "Is this for real?"

"Yup," Hylla promised. "One 16th century Spanish denali."

The driver was more than happy to take them all the way to D.C.

"You know what kind of coin it is?" Reyna whispered, curious.

"No," Hylla admitted. "I made that up."

Forty minutes later they were driving over a bridge and into D.C. Even Reyna recognized the Washington Monument looming over everything and the Capitol Building at the head of the National Mall. The driver dropped them at the nearest hotel and sped off, clutching his antique payment.

They found a place that would exchange their coins for American dollars, and left with more money than the two of them had ever had in their lives. They spent the next few hours shopping at an actual mall, and then returned to the hotel, checking into a room with two queen-sized beds.

After a shower and a meal from room service, Reyna felt like she was on top of the world. Her new jeans and white blouse felt softer than silk. She collapsed on her bed, fully ready to go to sleep despite the fact that it was only four in the afternoon.

She heard Hylla put down her glass on the stone top of the bedside table between their beds. "Rey?"

Reyna hadn't heard Hylla call her than in ages, but only replied with a tired, "Hmm?"

Her eyes weren't open, so she couldn't see Hylla's expression. "Are you alright?"

"I 'm now," Reyna muttered. "Actually, I would be even better if I could get to sleep."

Hylla was silent and Reyna thought she'd actually listened for a moment. "I found the date."

Reyna moaned and rolled over, burying her face in the pile of pillows that adorned her bed. " 's brilliant."

"It's August."

Reyna's eyes flew open. "What?"

"Four months," Hylla acknowledge mournfully.

They were both silent. There was simply nothing to be said to that staggering fact. Reyna set a different tack. "Where do we go from here?"

Hylla paused to consider. "I don't know yet. I'll tell you in the morning."

"You know, I was kinda hoping to be part of the conversation, given I'm almost thirteen." There was another surprising fact. Her September birthday was fast approaching.

"Go to sleep, Rey."

For once, Reyna didn't feel like fighting. She was happy just to float on that ever-so-soft bed and let her mind escape.


	7. Unconscious Advice

**A/N: This will be the last chapter for a week or two. Sorry! It's exam time at my school and I barely scraped together time to write this short chapter. I AM still continuing this, however, just putting it on hold.**

Reyna had always had dreams.

They were rarely pleasant dreams. They were often nightmares, gut-wrenchingly sad or heart-stoppingly terrifying. Sometimes, after a noticeably bad day at home, she would have an agreeable subconscious, which made no sense to her. Surely that was when she should be receiving the worst apparitions, but the pattern had held true for years.

So when she opened her eyes to a stormy black sky, she knew she wasn't, in fact, conscious.

She made her dream self sit up. She had that weird feeling, the one when you know that you're dreaming but can't quite grasp the fact and couldn't wake up if you tried. The feeling that you're condemned to act out the dream like reality until you wake up.

The landscape was impressive. She was sitting in a field of tall grasses that seemed to stretch on forever. To her far right a grey river wound sluggishly into an ocean. In the distance, a city composed of grey buildings rose ominously, the Washington Monument stretching toward a dark grey sky that swirled with thunderheads. The whole scene was grey.

 _Leave,_ a voice boomed, echoing with the thunder across the field. _Leave._

It was a woman's voice, but Reyna didn't recognize it. It didn't seem to be coming from anywhere in particular, but from every atom of air around her. Nor was she able to reply. She stood there, mute, pondering what the voice had said. Leave the dream? Was she intruding? Could one intrude in a dream?

 _Leave the East. Leave the East._

"Where should we go?" Reyna heard herself ask. "Where should _I_ go?"

 _West. Go to the West, child of Rome._

A strong wind bent the heads of all the grasses away from the river and toward Reyna, the dry blades hissing and rattling. The river was swirling in a frothy mass, choked with flotsam and sending spray shooting into the air. But the adjacent ocean was glassy and calm.

 _East is chaos. East is discord. East is traitorous. East is Greece._

The river began to slosh like water in a bowl, spilling onto the banks and spewing all matter of things with it.

 _The road is in the West. The road is to the West. All roads lead to Rome._

The river was flowing out onto the plains. The horizon was becoming pink. Reyna assumed that the dream-sun was rising and kept an eye on the river.

 _All roads lead to Rome,_ the voice boomed around her. _All roads lead to Rome. All roads lead to Rome._ The grasses whispered it, a thousand echoes of the same phrase swirling around her.

The sun peaked over the horizon and made the clouds shine purple, while the flood of river water that washed Reyna away shone gold.


	8. Up and Away

**A/N: I'm a bad person. I'm not studying for my Bio exam. I'm writing FanFiction. But Bio is terrible. Also, I found my least favorite word: oligonucleotide. If you don't know what that is, well, I don't either. It's science-y. But anyway, to the story.**

When Reyna awoke, the sun was streaming through the glass sliding doors. The sounds of traffic didn't penetrate the room, but she could see cars jammed in gridlock a story below. Hylla was still asleep on the other bed with her back to her, chest rising and falling visibly.

Reyna stood and crossed over to the large double windows. She had been so tired last night and so exhilarated yesterday that she hadn't paid much attention at all to the actual city. The very top Washington Monument peaked out from above the building across the street. None of the buildings were very tall, not like the pictures Reyna had seen of New York. The streets didn't look like either Circe's Island or San Juan.

She wondered what they would do now that they were in America. Both she and Hylla spoken fluent English, but they had never been in a fully English-speaking country before. They had certainly never been stranded in one. She looked out at the sun-washed street and felt a pang of loss. She wanted to be back in Puerto Rico. She wanted to see Gomez and Juan, to tell them that she had been on an actual pirate ship and actually escaped.

But Hylla would never go back to Puerto Rico. And Reyna knew that she would end up going wherever Hylla went. Because she was the younger sister.

The familiar hatred rose up in her throat but she swallowed it back down. Things had changed. Maybe Hylla would listen now. Maybe she, Reyna, would get a say.

The little electronic clock on the bedside table said it was past ten in the morning. Reyna had never slept to ten in the morning before. She was fairly certain she was taller now, too, although if what Hylla said was true it had been four months since she had had any means of checking, like ruler, or a mirror…

A mirror! Reyna hadn't seen herself in months. She had taken a quick shower last night but the bathroom mirror had been so fogged up she hadn't seen more than the ghost of herself, and hadn't felt any desire to behold her appearance at the time. Now she vaulted over an inconveniently placed ottoman and rushed to the bathroom, fumbling for the light switch and slamming the door.

She blinked. The person in the mirror blinked, too.

She had known that she would look different. One did not spend four months on a ship, malnourished and dehydrated, without drastic phenotypical **(A/N: damn it, Bio is taking over my life!)** consequences. But the girl she saw now was nearly an entirely different girl than the one who had been forced into makeup every day, and galaxies off from the girl who had left San Juan at age ten.

She was literally a different person, and one who she knew nothing about.

Her face was thin, unhealthily so but not alarmingly. Nevertheless, her cheekbones and nose stuck out angularly but not, she thought, crudely. Her hair was in need of a trim and the skin on her forehead was peeling a little from days and days under the sun at sea. She knew that she was thin, but the wide nightgown hid it, other than her arms. They hadn't burned—Reyna usually didn't—but had tanned to a darker color. It pleased Reyna. She had become far too pale during her stay at Circe's. She had looked white, and she hadn't wanted to have anything in common with Circe or Miss Becca.

Her eyebrows were thin, angled lines, perfectly symmetrical and streamlined. The injuries she had received aboard the pirate ship, intentional and unintentional on the pirates' part, had faded to nothing more than thin silver lines. She was not hideous. That was good. As much as she hated the idea that beauty was a trump card, it was.

She looked like Hylla.

Reyna frowned at the mirror. She looked almost _exactly_ like Hylla, except that she slightly visibly younger. _Exactly. Like. Hylla._ She wasn't even allowed her own face.

Speak of the devil. Hylla stumbled through the door, looking bleary eyes and exhausted. "Get out, will you?" She asked, yawning. Reyna didn't even argue. She just left and let Hylla slam the door in her face.

Reyna was fully dressed and running a brush through her hair before Hylla came out of the bathroom, looking fully refreshed. She took one look at her younger sister and said, "Your hair's all dead."

"Thanks," Reyna muttered, tugging the brush through the black mass again. It was almost down to her waist now.

"Just the ends," Hylla said, tugging at a bit of it. "Try putting it in a braid. That'll make it look better."

She waited for Reyna to start struggling with it before she continued speaking. "I've got a plan."

"Do I get any say in this plan?" Reyna asked.

"Maybe."

"Let's hear it."

"We go west. To Washington State."

"Where in Washington?"

Hylla shrugged. "Seattle."

Reyna paused. She was fairly certain that she had never heard of Seattle. She hadn't heard of Washington state, either, but assumed it was on the other side of the country. In the west. Where her dream had said to go. "Why Seattle?"

"We'll be safe there," Hylla said, picking up the room service menu.

"But why not, like, L.A., or San Francisco?" Those places Reyna had heard of.

"Because I said so."

"that's not a reason!" Reyna protested, sitting upright. "I thought we were going to talk—"

"I never said _that_."

"Well, why do you get to choose?"

"Do you have any idea where Seattle is?" Hylla asked. Reyna didn't reply, unwilling to admit that she didn't have a clue. " _That's_ why. I called a travel agency last night, they have a plane leaving at one today. Which means we should better get moving. What do you want for breakfast?" She offered Reyna the menu.

"Why don't you choose, surely you know better than me."

"Better than I."

"Shut. Up."

Two hours later they were sitting in the airport terminal, watching those lucky enough to be in Zone 1 and Zone 2 board. Reyna tapped her feet again the thin carpet. It was so weird to have _shoes_ again. It was so weird to be on land again, actually, never mind the shoes. She much preferred it to the rocking of the pirate ship, but she still felt woozy sometimes. Like the world should be rocking and she was subconsciously correcting for it, but it was in fact stationary. Hylla didn't seem to be having the same problem. She stared patiently at the passengers, staring coldly at an elderly couple who slowly tottered down the retractable ramp.

"Why can't we just stay here?"

Reyna wouldn't actually dream of staying in the east, not after her vision last night, but she wanted to know Hylla's reasoning.

"None of your business," seemed to be her default answer now.

"It is, actually. I'm apparently along for the ride." Reyna tried not to be pushy or invasive, but Hylla didn't respond any differently. The younger girl gave up and leaned back against the faux leather seat, disappointed. "Is it because the East is Greek territory?"

Hylla turned to look at her so fast it was like a time-lapse video; one millisecond she wasn't looking at Reyna, the next she was. "How did you guess that?" She asked suspiciously.

Well, there was Reyna's answer. She was done here. "None of your business."

Hylla snorted and stood as a crackly voice came over the PA system, announcing something that was either "Zone 3", "cones leave" or German. "Are you coming, or are you going to stay with the Greeks?"  
Reyna dutifully followed. A passport was not required to travel within the States, and if they needed some form of identification, Hylla waved her hand and the Mist created the illusion. The flight attendant waved them on with a chirp of, "Have a nice flight, Miss Ramírez-Arellano."

"I'm going to change that name," Reyna decided as she and Hylla took their adjacent seats.

"Why?" Hylla asked curiously.

Reyna truly considered before she answered. Because it was unwieldy and long. Because her father had always told her to be a good soldier and a proud Ramírez-Arellano. But mostly, because it was a name that belong to someone who she wasn't anymore. She told Hylla the last bit. Hylla snorted scornfully. "Very poetic."

"Why do I speak to you."

The plane taxied down the runway, getting ready for takeoff. The whirring of the engines grew louder. The plane began to pick up speed.

Reyna realized a rather important question a little too late. "Why are we flying?" She asked loudly, not caring who heard her. "Isn't this Jupiter's domain?"

"She said to fly," Hylla replied, gripping the armrests tightly and looking a little pale, staring straight ahead.

"Who said to fly?" Reyna asked, glancing out the window. Her stomach gave a fantastic lurch and suddenly the ground dropped away.

"You wouldn't understand," Hylla said through gritted teeth. She looked a little terrified. Reyna had to laugh. Maybe she was braver than Hylla at something. Flying, or at least the first twenty seconds of it, didn't bother her at all.

"Are you going to be like that for all five hours?" Reyna asked innocently.

Hylla shot her a dirty look. "You'll take that back if we go plummeting out of the sky."

There was something very foreboding about how she said it. The smile vanished from Reyna's face. They were intruding in the territory of the king of the Olympians. More than ever now, this wasn't a game.


	9. Emergency

**A/N: Um. This chapter sucks. Sorry. Just finished school and figured I had to get something out. Sorry.**

Reyna woke to a screeching alarm and something falling on her head.

She hadn't even realized that she had drifted off, but now that she was up, she could see that the whole plane was in a state of panic. Mortals screamed and grabbed at the armrests; mothers hurried to get masks over the faces of the children, ignoring their own; flight attendants had wedged themselves in between the bathroom stalls, looking as though they were going to faint. Reyna snatched the mask dangling in front of her eyes and yanked it over her head. The elastic band caught on her hair and was too tight, but she didn't have time to loosen it. Next to her, Hylla was screaming. Reyna had never seen Hylla's stoic mask deteriorate so completely—the person next to her was a ghost of the sister she knew.

With a massive jolt and sound of screeching metal, the plan suddenly began to spin in violent circles. Reyna's stomach dropped out from under her and she wondered if they'd been caught in a tornado until someone on the other side of the plane screeched, "We've lost a wing!"

Reyna seized the armrests and held on for dear life. There was a rattling and some of the overhead compartments burst open. Only one had a suitcase, and thankfully the other had only a duffle and a pillow, but all three became aerial projectiles zooming over the heads of passengers. The plane was going down. They were actually crashing.

 _"_ _You'll take that back if we go plummeting out of the sky,"_ said Hylla's voice in her mental ear.

The duffle flew over her head and Reyna screamed, afraid that if she bent over she'd lose her air mask. As it was, it was a miracle the duffle didn't rip the tube right off. Her ears popped and she realized they were losing altitude. They were plummeting toward the surface of the Earth, and out her half open window Reyna caught a glimpse of a rainy mountain range, barely distinguishable from the grey clouds that loomed behind it. A peak shot up past the window and Reyna caught the briefest of glimpses of cars on a highway. They were coming in very hard, very fast.

 _We're dead,_ she thought.

Then they hit the ground.

The jolt sent Reyna rocketing upward, only to be stopped by the seatbelt in a manner that felt as though she had dislocated both hips. Her head smashed the wall and Hylla smashed into her shoulder, before everyone was thrown forward and the plane came to a sudden, brutal stop.

Her head was bleeding and her heart was pounding so fast she was in risk of death by shock, but they had stopped moving. It felt as thought the most terrifying roller coaster in the world had come to a halt, and now they could please exit the ride. Hylla had all but fainted. Reyna removed her mask as well as her own, leaving them to dangle and batting at one half-heartedly as it swung back to smack her in the face. The whole cabin was tilted back, like they were still ascending after take off. The screams hadn't stopped, and neither had the scrape of metal on metal, but they had come to a stand still. They had, miraculously, not died.

And they were most likely indirectly responsible for the crash.

Reyna knew that they had to move. They had to get away before the mortals took them to a hospital (although Hylla looked like she might need one) or asked for some kind of identification. She unbuckled her seatbelt and turned in her seat to face the back end of the plane.

There was a collective scream as the whole cabin descended a dozen feet, coming to a less than stable rest again. Faced with the prospect of staying in the unsteady and wrecked plane or working their way out, people chose the latter. Even Hylla stirred from her traumatized hole, allowing Reyna to pull her the rest of the way up.

"Out," she demanded. Reyna was happy to oblige, but pointed out that Hylla was blocking her way to the aisle. They slid down to the back of the plane like it was a steep slide. The rear had smashed and buckled upon impact to create a rude tear in the metal just wide enough for Reyna to slip through. Hylla clambered through after her and without any exchange of words they started running away from the wreck and toward the distant road, distinguishable from the rest of the grey landscape only by the bright bodies of the cars that trundled across it.

By the time they reached the highway, the spectacle of the plane spiraling to earth had caused cars to come to a complete standstill. Some would-be-heroes were jumping the barrier and sprinting down the slope toward the wreck, with the intent of saving or aiding those inside. Others were simply recording it on their iPhones. Some stared at Reyna and Hylla but they jumped the barrier and disappeared into the crowd of people swarming to the side. Not until they had moved a good distance away did they stop and look back.

The tail of the plane was blackened by what could only be a lightning bolt. The left wing and ripped off and what remained of the cabin was leaned sickeningly against the base of a mountain. The windows in the cockpit had shattered and the bottom twelve feet of the plane were smashed, but survivors were straggling out, screaming and running from the disaster.

"Told you it was a bad idea," Hylla said.

"What?"

"To fly."

"It wasn't my idea! You did everything!"

Hylla shrugged at set off down the gridlock of cars, simply assuming Reyna would follow. Like always, she did.


	10. Cassidy White

**A/N: Well, this was a long chapter…relatively… it makes up for all the work I've not been doing, I guess. Well, enjoy!**

* * *

By holding their thumbs out and looking miserable, they managed to get a bus to pull over and take them in. It was a normal public transport bus, not packed with people but full enough that Reyna and Hylla had to stand. Reyna had never been on a bus like this one, and wasn't entirely sure how it worked, but because Hylla seemed to like being in charge anyway she decided Hylla would figure it out. Because apparently, she _always did_. And if something went wrong, well then, surely it was Reyna's fault.

Reyna didn't realize Hylla had noticed her fuming until she turned to face her. "You don't have to be so childish all the time, you know."

Reyna let out a bitter laugh. "Really?"

"Really," Hylla said, misinterpreting her sister's meaning.

"When was I ever childish? Oh, before now," Reyna added irritably as Hylla gave her a meaningful look.

"Back home. In San Juan. You were always complaining about how I didn't let you walk to school."

"I didn't even want to walk, I just wanted you to let Gomez's parents drive me. He and Maria were going together."

"Then on Circe's island, you kept pouting about having to stay."

"She was literally _bewitching_ you. We were—we are— daughters of Bellona. We're supposed to… lead armies, not play dress up."

Hylla snorted. "I'm trying to imagine you ever leading an army."

They were silent for a minute while Reyna bandaged her pride and Hylla reveled in her victory. Then, "I hate you sometimes."

Hylla raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Sometimes?"

Reyna scowled. She couldn't very well get on Hylla's nerves if everything she said slid off of her like water on a freshly waxed car. And she needed to get on Hylla's nerves to get her to listen. "Why do you always have to have the last word?"

"Because I'm me."

"No, really. Why? Everything I try to do you shoot me down. Everything I try to accomplish, you've already done. Every time I try to make you listen—"

"Look," Hylla said, facing Reyna as the bus swayed to a halt and people got up to leave. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry if that's how you feel but it's just not true. I never asked where you and Gomez and Juan and Maria went off to every time you vanished into thin air. I never questioned why you took ages to do everything Miss Becca asked. I never tried to get you to learn magic or take up theater or anything I wanted you to do. I keep trying to _protect you,_ from dad or from strangers or whatever, so why don't you stop being all indignant and self-righteous and listen to _me_ for once?"

That effectively shut Reyna up. A more total silence was draped around the two of them as the noisy bus filled again.

"Where are we going, anyway?" Hylla muttered, looking around for a map. A rain-washed cityscape rolled outside the bus windows. Reyna managed to find a shred of pride in the fact that for once she knew where they were headed and Hylla didn't. "Denver. Ever heard of it?"

Reyna shrugged, determined not to speak and determined not to admit that she didn't know. The movement did nothing good to her growing headache, and she remembered for the first time that she had a head wound. The couple in front of her were staring at it. She pressed her palm to her head and it came away streaked with red.

"It's in America," Hylla confirmed, trying to salvage any kind of superiority from the situation.

"How would you go from the east coast of the United States to the west coast without staying in the country?" Reyna scoffed. Then, in a whisper, "Can you do something with the Mist? The people keep staring at me."

"We're soaking wet and not carrying more than a wallet," Hylla pointed out without looking up, waving around the tiny bag which held all of their money.

"No, I mean the blood."

Hylla's head shot up in alarm, and she noticed for the first time the red liquid seeping out from Reyna's hairline. "Gods. Yeah, alright."

The mortals stopped staring. Hylla didn't. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

"Sure?"

"I'm as okay as I've ever been for the last four months."

Their conversation seemed to be coming in waves, and now it was calm. Both just wrapped an arm around one of the vertical metal poles and stared out the window over the heads of those sitting. They both ignored the jostling best they could.

"That probably won't need stitches."

"I know, thanks."

And silence. The bus made it's third stop since they had gotten on. Since they had moved into a city, the person to space ratio had been decreasing. A pretty blonde woman with a messenger bag and cup of what Reyna assumed was coffee wound up between her and Hylla. She didn't look much older than Hylla, although the daughter of Bellona looked old for her age. The woman was so absorbed in the papers she held in her hands that she didn't look up until the bus had started moving again. She visibly reared back when she saw Reyna. "Whoa, what happened to your head?"

Reyna felt a drop of blood roll down the outside of her eye and start to trek down her cheek. She flicked it off. "Just a bit unlucky."

"Does that need stitches? It looks like it needs stitches. How old are you? There's a hospital just down the road—" The woman probably would have wound on forever until Hylla stopped her.

"Head wounds bleed a lot. It's really just a scrape."

The woman looked them up and down, assessing them. "You two look terrible. Were you just in that plane crash?" Apparently their looks reflected the answer she wanted, because her eyes went wide. "Did you see those things, then, on the plane? There's footage of it going down online already, it's amazing…but did you see those big black dog creatures? They practically ripped the cabin apart…"

The woman spoke like this was all a wonderfully extraordinary event, clearly ignorant of the terrifying experience that was a plane crashing. Hylla looked at Reyna over her blonde head and mouthed, _Not normal._ Reyna mentally thanked Hylla for that helpful hint. The woman was clearly one of those few mortals with the ability to see through the Mist.

"No one at work believes me, of course," the woman added mournfully. "They thought I was playing a joke, so I left early. I'm a reporter for the Denver Post, by the way. Cassidy White. Nice to meet you. Could I maybe interview you about the crash?"

Before Reyna and Hylla could say either 'yes' or 'no', Cassidy was fishing a pen out of her messenger bag, clearly intending to write on the backs of the papers she had been reading earlier. "Okay, to start, why did you leave the scene?"

"To avoid speaking with reporters," Hylla answered scathingly. "No, we wouldn't like an interview. If you could give us the name of a cheap hotel, that'd be great. We're only here for one night."

Cassidy looked a little shocked at Hylla's blunt response, but quickly recovered and stuffed her things back into her bag. She looked at Hylla searchingly. "How old are you?"

"Sixteen," Hylla answered, truthfully for once. "My sister's eleven."

"What makes you think that you have the skills or the means to care for yourself and your little sister?" Cassidy asked, her whole manner changing from friendly to brisk in an instant.

It was Hylla's turn to look a little shocked as someone she barely knew questioned her authority. Reyna hung back. No one she ever knew opposed Hylla, but most everyone she knew was aware that they were demigods, raised from a young age to fend for themselves against a pantheon of fractious deities and terrifying monsters. "I've taken care of her since she was little, that's what."

"She _is_ little," Cassidy argued. Both Hylla and Cassidy ignored Reyna's indignant interjection of, "Hey!"

"She's my sister, and I'll take care of her how I want to," Hylla replied icily. The bus came to a stop at a random street corner and Hylla grabbed Reyna's arm. "Thank you very much, Cassidy White, and goodbye."

It was a very conclusive 'goodbye', delivered with all the anti-charm Hylla could muster, but Cassidy followed them off the bus. It wasn't until her voice chimed out over the hiss of the tires that they realized they had a shadow. "She needs medical attention."

"I'll get her medical attention," Hylla assured her.

" _I'll_ get me medical attention," Reyna contradicted. As always, she was ignored.

"That looks like it needs stitches," Cassidy repeated.

"It doesn't need stitches, it just needs a butterfly patch, or whatever you call them here in America." Hylla continued walking, maintaining a tight grip on Reyna's wrist. Cassidy stubbornly kept their pace, which Reyna doubted was easy in the reporter's three-inch heels.

"You aren't even from this country," Cassidy realized. "How will you know what to ask for at the hospital if you don't know how things work?"

"We're not going to a hospital," Hylla growled, staring down Cassidy with her obsidian eyes. Her thin form seemed to expand with her anger. Reyna knew larger and stronger women (and men) than Cassidy to back down when Hylla got 'that look', but the reporter, in tribute to her temerity, stood her ground.

"Come back to my house," Cassidy offered. "One night. That's all. I have a guest bedroom and a med kit you can use free of charge. Then you can go."

"How do I know you aren't some child kidnapper?" Hylla pointed out roughly.

Cassidy gestured to her thin form and slender build. "Do I look like a kidnapper?" When Hylla didn't look convinced, she stopped them, putting her hands on Hylla's shoulders. Reyna thought that was a good way to lose an arm. "I just want to make sure that she—and you— get taken care of. Properly. My neighbor's a nurse."

"Isn't that fantastic," Hylla drawled. "And complete coincidence, I'm sure."

Cassidy drew herself up to her full height, making her about an inch shorter than Hylla. "For goodness sake—"

"Hylla," Reyna interrupted Cassidy. For the first time, they both turned to look at her. "Listen to me. One time."

Hylla said nothing.

"It's one night. No money involved."

Cassidy confirmed that statement with an emphatic nod.

"I say we go for it."

Reyna would remember that one instance as the sole time Hylla listened to her.


	11. Normalcy

Reyna lay on her back on the bed Cassidy had dubbed 'hers', staring at the ceiling. For the first time in a long time she was bored without being simultaneously terrified, apprehensive, or sulky. It wasn't really any better.

Cassidy had assumed, much to Reyna's annoyance, that she would have nightmares about the plane crash. Twice she had caught Cassidy peering into her room around midnight to check on her. Truth be told, Reyna didn't really dwell on the plane crash at all, consciously or unconsciously; once she had woken up with the distinct impression she was falling, but that seemed to be the sum total of the ordeal's effect on her. She supposed that after being taken captive by pirates, watching her father deteriorate into a vengeful ghost and having to flee her home country, a plane crash was pretty much par for the course.

Cassidy, however, didn't know this. And Reyna had no intention of telling her.

The reporter hadn't been a bad host, and was in fact a rather enthusiastic one. The daughters of Bellona's 24 hour stay had become 72 hours, and the clock was still ticking away. Reyna didn't mind this. For once in her life she was in a place where the people appreciated her presence. But Cassidy lived alone, and there was nothing in her house to do aside from jigsaw puzzles. Reyna wasn't very good at jigsaw puzzles, and Hylla never had the patience.

Cassidy's bubbly personality was like a balm after being subjected to the ruff mannerisms of the pirates. In general she and Reyna got along just fine, until the reporter started doting over the younger girl and Reyna pushed her off. Hylla was another story entirely. She could not have been more prickly towards Cassidy White, and while Reyna didn't exactly appreciate Cassidy's repeated, subtle requests for information about the plane crash, Hylla called her out and fed her misinformation. Their tolerance of one another nevertheless surprised Reyna greatly, mostly because of Cassidy's temerity and Hylla's capacity to grind against it.

Reyna also marveled at Cassidy's trust. The majority of the time they were awake Cassidy was working, and Reyna and Hylla were left unsupervised at her home.

The time they spent loitering in the small town outside of Denver, Colorado was not misspent, however. Reyna took the time to figure out a bit more about her two new pets, Aurum and Argentum. They never appeared in front of anyone else, which she supposed was a good thing. There was no telling how Cassidy would react to dogs made of solid metal appearing in her kitchen. Because they did just appear. Most of the time, when they weren't by Reyna's side, they were simply gone. Then Reyna would do her best whistle and they would come running up behind her, frolicking and looking as little machine-of-death-like as they could with burning ruby eyes and teeth that spun like drill heads. They were completely mechanical, but for robots they had pretty complex programming. They had preferences, for example. They much preferred Reyna to Hylla, a point which neither girl raised but was clearly understood. The dogs were Reyna's, and Reyna's alone. They spent time lying down with their eyes dimmed like they were sleeping, but neither ate nor drank. Nor did they seem to require time to charge. Maybe, Reyna thought, that's what they did when they weren't with her.

"They're magic," Hylla had told her when they sat in Cassidy's living room, waiting for her to come home.

"They're mechanical," Reyna had corrected.

"Yes, but there's some magic there too. I can feel it."

Reyna hadn't argued the point. She was becoming increasingly aware of the fact that arguing things with Hylla was fruitless. Hylla was in eternal possession of the trump card: _I'm older_.

Reyna was also given time to mull over her dream. The voice in her dream had said to go west to Rome. Reyna had heard all about Rome from her father, and knew that the voice hadn't been speaking about the Rome of ages in Italy. It was the new Rome, that had settled somewhere in the west. Reyna knew in her heart that she had to get to the new empire. But Hylla was set on heading to Washington State, and while that was indeed in the west, Reyna felt that it wasn't the 'west' the voice had been referring to.

"Why Washington?" Reyna asked again. She heard Hylla pause what she was doing across the room. "Why Seattle?"

"There are people there who will take us in," Hylla told her. "All we have to do is get there. Then they'll find us."

"How can you be sure?"

"I was told so."

"By who?"

"Whom."

"Same difference."

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Hylla reminded her younger sister.

Reyna snorted, thinking of her wild dreams and even wilder experiences. "Try me."

Hylla didn't try her, much to Reyna's annoyance. A few minutes passed before Hylla stood up quickly.

"We have to leave," she said, and strode out Reyna's bedroom door.

Reyna was up and after her in an instant, jockeying for space to maneuver around Hylla in the small hallway. "What, now?"

"Now," Hylla agreed. She stopped in Cassidy's kitchen and yanked open the fridge, pulling out non-perishables and looking around for something to put them in.

"How are we going to get anywhere? Bus?" Cassidy took public transport into Denver every morning.

"No, that won't take us far enough." Hylla acquired her target and slammed the fridge shut. "Get the money. Let's go."

"What'll we tell Cass?"

Hylla blinked at her. "Cass?"

" _Cassidy_."

"Don't tell her anything."

Reyna finally managed to get around Hylla and stop her, placing herself between her sister and the front door. "You mean run off? After she was so nice to us?"

" _Nice_?" Hylla scowled and yanked on the door handle. Reyna leaned backward and the door shut again. "She's practically holding us hostage! All she wants from us is information about the crash! She said we could stay for one night and it's been days!"

"Holding us hostage?" Reyna let out a bitter laugh. "That's rich, coming from the person who _worshipped_ Circe."

Hylla shoved Reyna away and hurried out the front door. Reyna followed. She wondered in the back of her mind if she could simply stop trailing after Hylla. "That's stealing!"

"Compensation," Hylla argued. She dumped the bag by Cassidy's car, a red Toyota with the front right bumper smashed in. Pulling a key out of her pocket, she unlocked the car and threw the bag in the back. "Get in."

"Now that's _definitely_ stealing," Reyna said, holding the bag of money and refusing to move. "Or is that compensation too?"

"I said get in."

"I heard you. Can you hear me?"

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm damn tired of hearing you say that," Reyna snapped.

Hylla stared at he for a moment before climbing back out of the driver's seat. "Listen to me. _Cass_ is not who you want her to be. She isn't sweet, she isn't nice, and she isn't hosting us out of the goodness of her heart because people don't do that. She's been trying to bleed us of information the entire time we've been here. Haven't you noticed? You even gave her some. She saw us as two easy targets and went for us. And you completely fell for it. That is pathetic. After all we've been through anyone would think you had a little more sense. Frankly, Cassidy's just been disrespectful. She thinks we're easy pickings? Let's show her we aren't. She thinks we're dependent on her? Let's prove her wrong. Now get in the car."

"I'm not stealing her car."

Hylla stared at Reyna stonily for a minute. Each could see the gears turning in the other's mind. "We'll leave it with authorities in Seattle. They can return it to her. Worst comes to worst, Cassidy's without a car for a few days. It isn't like she uses it. So it's not stealing, it's borrowing. Besides, the longer we stay here the more time monsters have to find us, then we'll be dead, and Cassidy with us. So we're doing everyone a favor. Now get. In."


	12. End of the Line

Reyna didn't know where they were going, but Hylla seemed comfortable with the confusing road map in hand. Actually, she did know where they were going. Seattle. She just didn't know how to get there.

After a several hours, Hylla glanced up at a passing sign and said, "We're entering Utah."

Reyna didn't even pretend to know all 50 States and had certainly never heard of Utah.

Stealing Cassidy's car didn't sit well with her. Hylla, as much as Reyna loved (respected, feared, admired) her, was not by any stretch the epitome of truth. Reyna resolved to drag Hylla somewhere they could leave Cass' car so it was brought back to her as soon as they were in Seattle.

"So what are these people in Seattle like?" Reyna asked.

"Amazons."

Reyna frowned. "The warrior women?"

"Exactly."

"How do you know they'll take us in?"

Hylla shrugged. "I was told that they're always looking for recruits."

 _The infamous passive voice,_ Reyna thought, remembering her English teacher's favorite phrase. _Told by whom?_

She tried to find the situation's silver lining. Of course, they were on the road again. They had found people who would probably be willing to take them in, and hopefully they'd be better than Circe. Maybe the Amazons were Roman. Maybe her dream _had_ been referring to them after all.

"Are the Amazons Roman?" Asked Reyna.

Hylla shot her a sideways glance before resuming her dead-eyed staring at the road. "Well, they aren't mortal. Does it matter?"

A large red minivan shot past their driver's side, horn wailing. Hylla didn't even blink.

"I had a dream, back in Washington," Reyna brought up.

"Okay."

"A voice told me to go west. To Rome. I was just wondering if you had the same dream."

Hylla snorted. "Rome? Really? You want to go there?"

"The dream said—"

"It was a _dream_ , Reyna. Something your mind made up while you were asleep. You knew we were in the US and your mind remembered everything Papa told you about Rome and the States, and made a scenario for you."

"The voice said that we couldn't stay in the east, because the east was Greek," Reyna continued to argue. "I didn't know that."

"Papa probably mentioned it once and you forgot it. I remember all sorts of things in dreams." Hylla gave a short and humorous laugh as Reyna opened her mouth to fight her. "After all Papa said about Rome? After all he did to us, how he ended up, what you want to do is follow his advice? Really?"

Reyna shrugged. "He was one person. Rome is an empire."

"Rome _was_ an empire," Hylla corrected. "Now it's part of one legion, stranded in the 'west'."

Hylla was getting her 'I-know-better-so-don't-argue-because-you're-just-wrong' voice again, so Reyna shut up.

"Do you think we should take the plates off?" Hylla asked.

Reyna stared. "What?"

"The license plates. Should we take them off?"  
"Wouldn't a car with no plates attract more attention than one with stolen plates?" Reyna pointed out. It was Hylla's turn to shrug. "I think it would mean we would get pulled over. And neither of us has a driver's license."

"I have one."

"Well, not _with_ you."

Another span of impossibly long silence passed. There was nothing to be said or done. The sun was below the horizon when Hylla announced, "We're in Idaho."

"I really don't care," Reyna said, watching the faded road sign bearing the white words, 'Welcome to Idaho!' be briefly illuminated in the car's headlights.

"I'll wake you up when we enter Washington."

"Is that a state, too?"

"Obviously."

Reyna shrugged off the snide remark and climbed into the back seat, rolling to face the back and doing her best to ignore the brief flashes of car headlights as they were passed.

Reyna was indeed awoken when they crossed into Washington, but not by Hylla.

She regained her senses when the sound of squealing tires and shattering glass penetrated her sleep. Glass shards from the window above her head sprayed over her and Hylla yelled from behind the wheel.

Reyna snapped up to a sitting position and saw the massive flat-bed truck that had tried to ram them (and was almost successful) go flying into the metal guardrail on the highway and rebound, spinning a full 360 before backing into position to follow them. Through the windshield Reyna could see three leering faces peering down at her: women with elegant features, but covered in green scales. Their eyes glowed serpentine yellow, and that was all Reyna saw before the truck lurched forward again.

"Drive, drive, drive!" Reyna yelled to Hylla, spinning around in her seat.

Hylla was too preoccupied to even yell back. She slammed down on the gas and the car shot forward, smashing the tail light of the BMW in front of them.

"They're monsters!" Reyna yelled to Hylla, trying to fill her in.

"I know, God damn it, now shut up!" Hylla roared, weaving between the cars that littered the highway, avoiding some with only centimeters to spare. The truck applied somewhat less effort, smashing into the backs of cars and generally causing mass panic. Several shocked drivers careened over to the shoulder to avoid the large black menace.

"That thing is like a tank," Reyna said, watching it pick off cars one by one. Not very speedy, by any standard, but neither were they.

"Shut! Up!" Hylla said from the front seat. "We need to lose them. We need to lose them." Then, after a second, "What's that?"

Reyna turned her attention away from behind the car to in front of it. On the side of the parallel highway, which ferried traffic headed in the other direction, was a plume of black smoke.

"That's a burning car," Reyna said. "There's another truck coming from the other way."

Hylla swore and unfastened her seat belt, struggling to get it off while she dodged between cars. The gap between them and their pursuers was closing on both sides. "Get ready to run."

Reyna was momentarily distracted by a light blue Prius with New York plates spinning wildly into the barrier. Then, "Okay."

Hylla jerked the steering wheel to the right, and the car followed. It smashed into the guard rail and skidded forty feet before finally coming to a stop.

Hylla threw open her door. "Get out!"

Reyna followed. The massive black truck driven by the monster women was barreling down on them, clearly intending to ram them.

"Over the rail! Quick!" Hylla grabbed Reyna's arm and they vaulted the guard rail, sprinting down the slope and into the trees beyond. There was a massive _crash!_ from behind them seconds later and the sound of metal tearing and groaning. The truck had hit the rail, but the flimsy-looking metal strip had done its job; it had bent and folded but the truck hadn't gotten through. Reyna wouldn't have thought it possible.

The door twitched, and Hylla grabbed Reyna's arm, tugging her along through the trees. A thin river ran through the wood, and beyond that, farmland. They waded the river in a panic, horrified at how much the water slowed them down; then Hylla was dragging Reyna along up the bank and away from the crash, adrenaline fueling them past their normal limits.

It felt like ages later when they stopped, not pursued, and sat gasping for breath on the ground. Reyna whistled, and out of nowhere came Aurum and Argentum, who paced around the sisters, growling at the trees.

"Cass' car," Reyna remembered suddenly.

"You couldn't have called those dogs sooner?" Hylla gasped.

"Cass' _car,_ " Reyna said again. "How are we going to pay her back?"

Hylla shrugged, and Reyna got the feeling that she hadn't been intending to in the first place.


	13. Warrior Women

Reyna didn't think much of Seattle.

It was a city, that looked like every other American city she'd seen so far, except maybe taller and wetter. There didn't seem to be anything in it that made it special enough to house the Amazons. Also, Seattle was big. Lengthwide, widthwise, and heightwise. Reyna wondered how on Earth they were going to find the warrior women in the massive grid of streets.

Hylla solved that problem rather quickly by holding a hand out and yelling, "Taxi!"

She and Reyna piled into the back seat. The driver drew back the little glass window and asked gruffly, "Where to?"  
"Amazon headquarters," Hylla answered, not looking up from the bag she was rummaging through. The taxi driver nodded and replaced the window panel.

"Is he a demigod, too?" Reyna asked.

"Probably not," Hylla said.

"But he knows where the Amazons are."  
"The Amazons run a company called Amazon," Hylla explained, like Reyna was being tedious. "It's how they generate income. They sell things across the United States, and maybe other places too."

The taxi stopped at a traffic light and Reyna watched the rain hitting the window. Even the rain was different here than in Puerto Rico. Here the rain came down in little, cold droplets, not in warm splashes. Actually, a lot about America seemed colder to her. Maybe it was because she grew up in Viejo San Juan. She had always thought of that as a somewhat cheerful place. Cheerier than this city, anyway.

"Why would they take us in?" Reyna asked. It was a question that had been nagging at her for a while, since before the attack on the highway.

"They want to recruit," Hylla said. "They need warriors."

"Salespeople."

"Shut up."

"How did you go from wanting to stay on Circe's safe little island to joining a cult of warriors?"

"They aren't a cult," Hylla snapped. "And Mom told me to go there."

Reyna froze. "Mom? You spoke with Mom? When?"

Hylla shrugged. "Back in Washington, D.C. Why, hasn't she said anything to you?"

That could have been a genuine question, but it was laced with barbs that stuck in Reyna's skin. Underlying Hylla's tone was a clear message: _Mom must like me better, then_.

"You're older," Reyna murmured, not realized she'd spoken out loud until Hylla replied, "Exactly."

That stung too. Bellona would always like Hylla better, because Hylla would always be older.

Before she could wallow in that for too long, however, the cab driver pulled up to the curb and said, "Here y'are, miss."

It looked like an office building to Reyna, and she almost thought that they'd come to the wrong place except for the large letters that spelled out 'AMAZON' on the building's front door. Or doors. Inside, Reyna could see a large front desk manned by a young woman in a black pantsuit. She was watching them curiously, and maybe just a little bit coldly. When she saw Reyna staring back even more coldly, she went back to sorting papers on the black granite surface of her desk.

"Come on," Hylla said, tugging Reyna towards the doors.

"My least favorite two words ever," Reyna muttered.

"No, that's 'shut up'," Hylla corrected. Now she was even telling Reyna what Reyna liked.

The woman at the desk looked up in ernest as they entered, tossing a few more papers on a pile before interlacing her fingers and turning to them. "May I help you?"

"Yes," Hylla said bluntly, walking right up to the desk. Looking like hell, she still projected an aura of strength. The woman behind the desk didn't seem intimidated, to her credit, but she did rise to meet Hylla's challenging advance toward her. "Is this the headquarters for the Amazons?"

"This is Amazon's central establishment, yes," said the woman, clearly referring to the company and not the ancient warrior cult-but-not-a-cult. Her name tag read 'KINZIE' and she was no older than Hylla, now that Reyna was seeing her up close. The two stared each other down aggressively.

"Not 'Amazon', ' _the_ Amazon _s_ ," Hylla corrected. "Ever heard of them?"

Just when Reyna thought that the girl wasn't going to answer, she replied, "How were you referred to us?"

"My mother told us where you were," Hylla said.

"Your mother?"

"Bellona."

The girl looked visibly shocked for longer than Reyna would ever have allowed herself to look. Her eyes went from Hylla, to Reyna, then back to Hylla before she went over to her desk and pressed a button. There was a brief buzzing sound. Then doors on either side of the main room swung open, and half a dozen armed guards, all women, poured in.

"Relax, relax!" Kinzie the receptionist called as both Reyna and Hylla drew weapons of their own. All the guards put their weapons away, a clear sign of peace. Reyna followed their example. Hylla did so more slowly, but did end up sheathing her knife. "You came looking for us, so here we are. They'll take you down to see the Queen."


	14. Senatus Populusque Romanus

**A/N: Wow! Got this one up fast. When one had a five-hour car ride one gets things done. I guess I make up for it because this one's relatively short. Anyway, I won't make a habit of posting this fast. You got lucky. Brace yourselves for more two-week-long waits. (** **sorry!)**

* * *

The Amazons had comfy guest bedrooms.

Reyna lay on the twin-sized bed in the higher part of the Amazon's impressive underground complex, staring at the ceiling. Aside from the lack of windows, the spartan room could have just as easily been above ground as below it. Reyna didn't get the sense that there were thousands of tons of rock above her head ready to burst through the ceiling and bury her. Maybe that was because there were still a few levels above her.

Hylla was in the room next door, but Reyna tried not to think about that. What she did try to think about were the events of the day.

Queen Amelia of the Amazons was clearly a benevolent ruler. Her 'subjects', although there didn't seem to be a true class difference there, all adored her. And she and Hylla had gotten along absolutely fabulously.

Amelia had been kind to Reyna, but it had been very clear that her focus had been on Hylla. More specifically, on recruiting Hylla, although Queen Amelia had made it clear that Reyna was just as welcome and they'd be _thrilled_ to have her. Reyna had been mostly quiet during their meeting with the Queen. Any questions she'd had Hylla had asked, and no questions were posed directly to her.

Sleep was dancing around the edges of her mind, but it seemed reluctant to take her completely. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to think about trying to fall asleep.

As always, she was never able to pinpoint exactly when she drifted off, but knew for certain that she was dreaming. This dream was just as vivid as the one she had received in D.C., but the scenery was much different. She was standing inside a building, facing a large desk. There were two lavish chairs behind the desk, and on either side of her, the walls were draped with velvet and fitted with casings displaying medals, trophies, weapons and artifacts. Behind the desk with the two chairs was a case that was empty.

Almost.

The ghostly outline of a golden pole topped with an regal eagle shimmered in the golden case. Reyna was transfixed by it, only able to stare at the harsh beak and cold eyes, the strong wings that stood for strength and the sharp talons that meant mercilessness. If the standard had been there in the flesh, Reyna would have been intimidated; but as it was, there was simply a wavering copy in the glass case.

 _Do not stay with the Amazons,_ said a voice from behind her. It was the same voice from her first dream, only less harsh. Reyna tried to turn and see who was speaking. She couldn't move. Her gaze was stuck on the eagle. _That is not your path. You must continue on to Rome._

 _The Amazons_ are _Roman!_ Reyna wanted to cry.

 _They are not true Romans,_ the voice said, as if it had heard her. _They have mixed and intermingled with others. They look for purity but only make the water muddier. True purity is not a matter of gender, but a matter of bravery, honor, and loyalty._

There was a ripple in the air in front of Reyna, and the outline of a woman appeared, standing in front of the desk. She was tall. Undeniably queenly. She looked like… like Hylla, Reyna decided. And if she looked like Hylla, that meant she looked like Reyna.

"Bellona," Reyna said, barely more than a whisper. But the woman heard her.

Bellona gave her daughter a small smile, but there was no warmth in it. This was the first time Reyna had ever interacted with her mother, not counting her previous dream. She had no idea how to act, what to say, or if she should even say anything.

 _You could be great,_ Bellona said, her voice still echoey despite the fact she now appeared to have a form. _But not with the Amazons. Not under the shadow of your sister. You know this, but you do not act on that knowledge. Put aside you doubts, child, and follow the road to Rome._

Bellona stepped forward to Reyna and bent down, laying the softest of kisses on her forehead. Images burned in Reyna's mind like they had suddenly been branded there: a wolf at the head of a pack, a city surrounded by a river, an army sieging a small castle built on a plain, and finally, a purple banner embroidered with four golden letters.

 _Senatus Populusque Romanus,_ said Bellona's voice, and Reyna's vision went black.


	15. Don't You Dare

"We would like to offer you both a place in our ranks, formally," said Queen Amelia, holding in her hands two manila folders. "We would provide you with room, board, education, and anything else you require. We have school curriculums for children grades five and up to accommodate everyone." She looked pointedly at Reyna as she said this.

Reyna bristled as Amelia referred to her as a child. She hadn't shared her dream of Bellona from the previous night with anyone, not even Hylla. If Hylla wanted to withhold information for ungodly amounts of time, well, two could play that game. Although Reyna didn't know if she would ever tell Hylla.

"There are, of course, other options." Amelia had clearly reached the part of the proposition where she rattled off all of the boring bits that most people ignored. "If you would like to join, and we'd be positively thrilled to have you, all you have to do is fill out a bit of paperwork."

She held out a manila folder to each of them. This was not particularly presumptive of her; Hylla had expressed ample enthusiasm about joining over the 24 hours they had been with the Amazons. Hylla took her folder and the pen offered to her, thanking the Queen. Reyna didn't. "What do you mean by other options?"

The room lapsed into an awkward silence. The guards by the door stopped looking at the daughters of Bellona and stared with great interest at the far wall. Samantha, Amelia's second in command, shifted from foot to foot apprehensively.

Amelia started to withdraw her hand, startled, then stopped, before reclaiming the folder completely.

"Reyna," Hylla muttered, clearly embarrassed. She had all but guaranteed their admission into the female warriors' ranks. But Reyna didn't care if she was coming across as arrogant, petulant or disrespectful.

"Quite alright," Amelia said, forcing a smile. "There are sometimes women who come here in search of something other than what we offer. For you, Reyna, there are two other options. There's a group of young women who roam the country called the Hunters of Artemis. They take vows of immortality on the condition they never have romantic relations with men; much more strict than us, for the record. The goddess Artemis spends much of her time hunting monsters with them. Alternatively, there's an establishment in California that is what remains of the Roman Empire. It is an entire, self-contained city. Ten years of service as a legionnaire are required, but before that a recruit must train for some undetermined amount of time under the tutelage of the she-wolf Lupa." Amelia paused. "It is, of course, your choice. If you chose to leave, we can direct you to either place."

"She'll stay," Hylla said, clearly felling pressured.

"Excuse me," Reyna said loudly. Hylla looked at her in surprise. Reyna knew that this was the first time she'd really put up a fight, but she'd had enough. Enough of Hylla making her follow without telling her where they were going, enough of Hylla making decisions without telling Reyna why she was making them, enough of Hylla's word being law.

"This is my decision," Reyna said. "My choice. So butt out, thank you."

Hylla looked utterly bewildered. She had clearly never imagined Reyna choosing to separate from her. "Rey…"

"Don't call me that," Reyna said sharply. Both Hylla and Amelia raised their eyebrows.

Bellona's parting words burned in Reyna's ears. _Senatus Populusque Romanus._ She didn't speak Latin, but she instinctively knew what that meant: the Senate and People of Rome. The ghostly eagle burned in her mind's eye, so proud and strong without actually being there.

"I'd like to go to the Romans," Reyna said, ignoring Hylla's protests.

"What are you doing?" Hylla asked, shock and horror on her face.

"All roads lead to Rome," Reyna said, remembering her first dream.

"Not my road," Hylla challenged. But Reyna had it down by now. Now was when Hylla would assert her authority; overpower her; shut down her voice. And this time Reyna wouldn't allow it. She wasn't just going to tell herself she wouldn't permit it— she would shut Hylla down first.

"Then let's split," Reyna said. "Just don't say anything. Not right now. Hear me out right now and disregard it later but hear me now. You think you'll be happy here. Then stay. I know that I won't—no offense—" Amelia inclined her head, showing no offense was taken, "But I think that I could be happy with the Romans. So the logical thing to do is to split up."

Hylla looked as though she was trying to swallow a marble. "Logical."

"Yes." There was a long, heavy silence. Then Reyna added, "Your name's already on the paper anyway."

Hylla looked down at the partially filed-in forms, then up at her sister. "I guess it is."


	16. Split

It took a pitifully short time for Reyna to be back above ground, being sent off by Hylla, Queen Amelia and the guard Kinzie, as well as the Queen's personal guards. Thirty minutes. That was all it took, and then Hylla and Reyna were standing a little apart from everyone else and a little apart from each other, struggling to find something to say.

Hylla still looked shocked. It was a rather large bombshell for Reyna to have dropped on her, she knew; _hey, I know I haven't really mentioned this, but I'm leaving and I don't want you to come along. Bye! Have a nice life and career or whatever._

Bellona, whom Reyna had partially met twice now, had severed her link with the person most dear to her: her sister. There was something to be said about that, but as Hylla wasn't aware of Reyna's dream, it would have taken too long. Although, Reyna supposed she had toyed with the idea of leaving. Bellona had just been a rather violent and effective catalyst, because how does one refuse a goddess without being blasted into dust bunnies?

"You're sure you don't want to stay?" Hylla asked again.

"I can't," Reyna said again. "I'm sorry. I really am. But I can't life the rest of my life with you constantly making decisions for me."

Hylla nodded like she understood, but her eyes said differently. Her eyes showed that she wasn't evaluating herself; she was evaluating Reyna. She hadn't yet found where the fault lay. Inside herself and her own actions.

At least, that's how Reyna saw it.

"Be careful who you trust," Hylla said, rushed.

Reyna blinked. "Of course."

"No, really, Reyna," Hylla said. "We trusted Papa. We trusted Mom. We—you—trusted Cass. Be careful who you let in close, because when they leave, it hurts."

This was a surprisingly deep comment from Hylla, but nothing Reyna didn't already know. "I will." With a small, humorless smile, she added, "Trust me."

Hylla returned the smile and hugged Reyna roughly. "I will miss you. Honestly. Come back and visit sometime."

"Aren't we enemies now?"

"Not unless you become praetor and I become queen," Hylla said, grinning. "And I doubt that'll happen, for a whole bunch of reasons."

Reyna nodded and started to pull away, but Hylla grabbed her hand. "Hey. I should have given this to you a long time ago, but Papa told me to wait until Mom spoke to you. This was before he went crazy, by the way. And I don't know if you've spoken to her or not, but if we aren't going to see each other for a while…" Hylla held her hand out, face up. A shiny silver ring sat in her palm, engraved with the sword and torch design of their mother. "I have one too. If you ever get in trouble, or you're in the area and you need help, get the ring to me. Or show an Amazon the ring. If the symbol doesn't do it, they can trace it to me. Good?"

"Great," Reyna managed, slipping the ring onto her finger. There was nothing more to be said. "Goodbye."

"Goodbye," Hylla echoed. She watched Reyna hike up the strap of the backpack the Amazons had given her. Then Reyna turned and, without ceremony, left.

 **A/N: and... this is the last we'll see of Hylla. Maybe. Who knows **wiggles fingers dramatically**. Also, who knows how long it'll be before the next chapter's up. I'm taking an online course that munches up my time like free cookies. So I will do my very best to keep these coming, and they will, I'm just not sure how soon.**


	17. Lupa

**A/N: heck, that was a long hiatus! Sorry! I'm taking an essay writing course this summer, like I said, and it's terrible. For example, this week I was supposed to take a tradition my family has and unravel the underlying meaning, then say what it reflects about our current culture in 21st century America... brrrrrhrhrhrhr. But here's a chapter, if I haven't lost you all already.**

The monsters had been relentless. They had followed Reyna all the way down the West Coast, tailing her, attacking her, hunting her down. Each time she looked to Hylla for guidance. Each time she remembered Hylla wasn't there, and berated herself for looking. She was finally on her own. She could handle herself.

Now, though, she was really in a jam. She was walking along the side of a road which, unfortunately for her, was empty. It was two in the morning, though. The moon was surreally bright and the shadows were inky dark. They unsettled Reyna. The only sound was her soft footsteps on the pavement and the quiet rustling of leaves stirred up by the wind. And the growling.

The growling had begun a while back, probably around a mile. At first Reyna had thought it was a truck coming up behind her. Now, though, she knew it was something stalking her. With the choice of either staying on the shoulder of the road, close to where the monster was hiding, or moving into the open, where it could clearly see her but have her more distance, she chose the latter. Whatever the beast was, it had yet to show itself, and Reyna wasn't even sure where it was. All she knew was that it was lurking in the darkness to her right.

Her dagger was out and she had called her dogs. Aurum and Argentum circled her, snarling at everything. Their rudy eyes glowed sinisterly in the dark. Their claws made clicking sounds on the asphalt. Reyna felt safe with them, taking comfort in the fact that she had two highly technical, sentient and loyal weapons on her side.

Of course, their usefulness would depend on how big the monster was.

A lone car came slowly down the highway. Reyna moved to the opposite side of the road and watched it pass. The headlights slowly faded into the distance. No one seemed willing to let her hitchhike, although she understood that. To put it bluntly, she looked like hell. Days of being more or less in the wild did that to people. Also, the lack of sleep wasn't helping. If the unknown monster hadn't shown up Reyna probably would have camped by the side of the road, but now that wasn't a possibility. She was pushing on until the next exit, when she would follow it, hopefully to some place civilized with a cheap motel at the very least. The money the Amazons had given her was slowly dwindling.

The growling abruptly stopped, leaving only dead silence like something had fallen out of the world. Aurum barked once, the sound ringing. The hairs on the back of Reyna's neck slowly rose. Either the monster was gone… which was unlikely… or it was advancing.

There was a blood-curdling howl and a something like a living shadow bounded from the darkness between the trees. Blood red, feral eyes gleamed from under the fur and rotting teeth were on full display as the dog-like creature revealed itself. Reyna could have taken it, if it hadn't been as tall as the first floor of her old home.

Aurum and Argentum held their ground, snarling. Reyna's knife suddenly seemed much too small to make any difference. The hell-dog and the metal ones stared off, tension thick like an approaching thunderstorm.

Another howl rang out, this one farther away and higher pitched. Another answered it. And another.

Wolves.

The black dog pricked up its ears, listening, then, with a growl, it turned and sprinted in the opposite direction, leaving Reyna alone.

Reyna had about three seconds to be completely stunned before getting her head back on straight. Whatever was formidable enough to scare a monster of that size, she didn't want to meet. Even though the calls had sounded like normal wolves, she wouldn't want to meet a pack of those, either. She took off at a maintainable jog down the road.

Before long she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rising again. It was weird how they did that, she thought as she paused to look around. She could see nothing, but the darkness made it so that there wasn't much to see anyway. It was like with the massive dog. She had never seen it until it had confronted her, but she had known it was there. This was the same. She could feel the presence of creatures in front of her, but she couldn't actually tell where or what they were.

A loud, low snarling came from behind her. Reyna whirled around. Perched on the concrete divider between the lanes was a massive wolf. Not massive like the hell dog had been, but massive as in it came up to just above her waist. It bared its teeth at her and snarled, eyes glistening black.

Another snarl answered it. Reyna turned again. Wherever she wasn't looking, wolves crept out into the open, slinking in low to the ground. Soon she was surrounded.

She looked toward Aurum and Argentum. They were doing absolutely nothing, sitting docile on the pavement, watching the wolves but not threatening them, like they had done with the earlier monster. Perhaps it was some kind of wolf/dog relationship, Reyna thought as she kicked one. her foot made a hollow ringing sound, but Argentum didn't move.

 _Your dogs will not fight us,_ said a feminine voice. This one was unlike Bellona's. It had the same, slightly ringing quality but also was harsher, rougher and lower. _And we will not fight you._

The alpha wolf slunk into the center of the circle. Reyna watched it like it was the one that had spoke.

 _I am Lupa,_ said the wolf. Reyna got goosebumps as she recognized the name. _And I have come to guide you, Child of Rome._


	18. The Wound That Keeps on Hurting

Reyna drummed her fingers on her shins and looked around the hollow, bored. It had been two weeks since the she-wolf Lupa had taken her in. Since, she had learned an unbelievable amount. How to face an enemy, how to hold a sword, how to throw a spear. How to ride a horse, how to stand when addressing one's superiors. How to make offerings to the gods, how to pray, and, most importantly, what was expected of her.

 _Your position is unique, Daughter of Rome,_ Lupa had told her only a few days ago. _You are the only child of Bellona to walk in Rome's territory. You are her representation on Earth, her primary connection to this world. You must live up to that standard._

The she-wolf said it so casually, Reyna almost believed for a moment that it wouldn't be too hard. But she was no fool. The weight of being "Bellona's representation on Earth" was already weighing on her, despite having practically never met the goddess before. What was she supposed to do, wait and look for hidden symbols? Listen for her voice again? Sacrifice animals and root through the entrails, like the ancient Romans did?

 _You fight,_ Lupa had told her when she asked. _You train and you command your fellow Romans. It is your birthright._

Lupa and her pack weren't the friendliest of room mates. They were bristly and demanding. With them she entered a more vigorous training routine than she ever had before, going to sleep at night with aching arms and knees and ankles and shoulders. She woke up in the morning with bruised shins and forearms, stiff joints and heavy eyelids. She was allowed seven hours of sleep a night, on average; from well after dark to just before the sun rose.

One night, Lupa hadn't let her sleep at all. She and her pack had spread out in the woods around their hollow, Reyna in the center.

 _Your task is to make it from here to the road,_ Lupa had told her. Then she had slunk into the shadows and vanished, leaving Reyna with a dozen questions, mainly which direction the road was and what she had to defend herself with. She shouted her inquiries to the darkness at large. The answer was not encouraging.

 _A Roman must be prepared to find their way when lost, and to protect themselves when unarmed! Learn, child! The Legion needs a leader._

Reckoning that there would be a road cutting along the coast, Reyna headed west, guard up. She arrived at the strip of pavement two hours later, cut and bruised and exhausted, lip split and right ankle sprained. Lupa had come with no praise, only telling her that she must return now. She made Reyna walk all the way back, and by the time she got there, the sky was getting faintly light. Lupa had allowed Reyna one small square of ambrosia and then had her launch into her morning routine.

Now, the pack was out hunting, and Lupa, reckoning that their time with Reyna was coming to an end, had left her back at their base, alone. The hollow had steeply sloping sides, covered with fallen and rotting leaves. It wasn't cold yet, which was a relief, because the sleeping area was a stone cavern off to one side. Reyna was forced to share it with the pack, and at times the smell was a little overwhelming. Aside from that there was nothing in the hollow except for a sand patch used for training.

That was where Reyna was sitting now, tracing images in the sand. Words, actually. The lyrics to her and Gomez's favorite song, one that she hadn't heard in over half a year now. She wondered what he and Juan thought had happened to her and Hylla. She wondered what Mercedes, the kind old woman who worked a _piragua_ cart near the Plaza de Armas, did when she and Hylla stopped showing up every Friday afternoon like clockwork, still carrying their bags from school. Reyna traced a loopy 'M' in the sand and wondered. She missed Mercedes almost as much as she missed her friends. She remembered sitting on the short curb as Mercedes vigorously served brightly colored piragua to her customers, speaking quickly to the girls between servings, asking about their school work and their lives and their dreams. The tiny woman shaved the ice by hand right from a big block. It was, in Reyna's opinion, the best piragua in the city of San Juan, and she wondered if she'd ever tell Mercedes that again. Continuing her depressing train of thought, she pondered whether she'd ever have piragua again, or even if she would return to San Juan.

There were so many people Reyna had wanted to say goodbye to before Hylla had grabbed her by the hand and, with nothing other than the clothes on their backs, stowed away on a ship bound for Florida. She wanted to bring the end-of-year cookies she and Hylla always made to her sixth-grade teacher, Srta. Fonseca, even though the year had ended months ago. She wanted to tell Maria and Kamila that she wouldn't be able to finish their project on the San Pedrito bird with them. She wanted to take one more swing at Luis Ortega and his stupid older sister Paola. She wanted to sneak into the kitchen of Barrachina's during lunch hours on Sundays and help the youngest assistant chef, Necha, cook some _mofongo_.

She was so absorbed in her thoughts, and Lupa was so silent, that Reyna didn't notice the she-wolf's presence until she was right next to her. When Reyna realized, unsure of how long Lupa had been there, she smoothed away the sand with the blurry lyrics on it. Lupa regarded her as she always did; coldly, and maybe just a little bit curiously. _You were dwelling very deep in your own mind, Daughter of Bellona._

Reyna shrugged. "Nostalgia."

Lupa made something that sounded like an incredulous snort, but as wolves didn't exactly have the same expressive range as humans, Reyna wasn't sure. She started to pad away before circling around and laying down in the sand in front of Reyna.

 _In Greek,_ she began, ' _nostalgia' literally means 'the wound that keeps on hurting'. You will have enough pain in the years to come, child. Do not make more for yourself._

"There was so much I wanted to do before I left," Reyna murmured. "I didn't want to leave at all."

 _Your road brought you here,_ Lupa told her, in the gentlest tone Reyna had ever heard her use. It was still as hard as rock, but it was a softer rock, like limestone instead of granite. _Many don't wish to follow the paths that have been laid before them, but when you get swept down them, you must do the best you can. Make peace with your own mind, Daughter of Rome, for until you do, you will have no peace with others._

With that the she-wolf heaved herself up and shook the sand off of her fur. _In one day, your time with us will be over. Then you will continue your journey to the camp. They will welcome you, given your heritage. Remember this. Have you heard of a man named Machiavelli?_

"No," Reyna replied honestly.

 _He had some very interesting views on the world. You would do well to remember a certain ideology of his: it is better to be feared, than to be loved. Feared over loved, but never, ever hated. Hatred is the acid that poisons kings._


	19. Who's the Boss (Or, Jason)

**A/N: Reyna's stay with Lupa was originally supposed to be five chapters, but… I sorta ran out of stuff to talk about. As a result, this is the SECOND TO LAST CHAPTER! Probably! Maybe third-to-last because I cut two of the Lupa ones. Hmm.**

Reyna's parting with Lupa was much less emotional than her parting with Hylla had been. The pack had set her in the right direction, walking with her to start, then peeling off one by one until only Lupa and Reyna remained.

 _We will meet again, Daughter of Rome, although whether it be during peace-time or on the field of battle I cannot tell._ Lupa didn't look at Reyna when she 'spoke', although Reyna glanced over at her. _Once you cross the Tiber, you will be in Rome. Put down roots there and grow. And remember: feared rather than loved, but not hated._

With that, the she-wolf was gone, stopping and sitting on her haunches as Reyna continued walking.

She would indeed see Lupa again, but it wouldn't be for two years, and it would only sort-of be peace-time. When she next laid eyes on the she-wolf, Reyna would be standing on a marble platform, dressed in gold armor and a purple cloak, being inaugurated as praetor.

* * *

Six days later, Reyna was fed up. She had headed in the direction Lupa had sent her. She had faced off against monsters in the day and in the night. She had been running and hitchhiking and sleeping under bridges and raiding unattended grocery carts. But she couldn't, for the life of her, reach the damn camp.

She stood at the top of a hill, looking down at the tunnel entrance below her. That was where the gate to the camp was. If she was able to get down the tunnel, she could have reached it. Unfortunately for her, the area around the tunnel was infested with monsters, some using the mist to disguise themselves as policemen, some hiding in the trees, some actively seeking her out. It was exhausting and extraordinarily frustrating. She was so close.

Now she was crouched behind a bush, dagger out, eyes narrowed, watching two dracaena armed with spears cross the busy road. Drivers honked and swerved but it was clear that none of them saw the creatures for what they really were. Reyna wished she couldn't, either. But then she would be dead.

A loud _snap!Crash!BOOOONG!_ sounded to her right. She whipped around, holding herself in ready stance, staring intently between the trees, listening hard for any other sound. As it turned out, she didn't need to strain her ears at all.

"Bobby! What are you _doing_?"

"I tripped, man, I tripped! I can't help it!"

"You knocked my shield into a tree stump. You just gave away our position to literally everyone in a ten mile radius."

"I'm _sorry,_ Gwen. I really am. Just don't hold your shield so low."

"It's not her fault, Bobby. If you were less clumsy—"

"All of you! Be quiet!"

At the command all of the voices shut up. Reyna listened intently.

"Okay," the last person to have spoken said firmly. "Start moving out again. _Quietly,_ this time."

"I hate being Fifth," grumbled the one of the other boys in the group. From the sound of rustling undergrowth, it seemed that they were moving around Reyna's hiding spot. "We have to do all the scouting missions. It's not like we're going to find any new recruits anyway."

"You don't know that, Michael," said the girl.

"Yeah, I do, Gwen."

"Antony said that the omens were favorable—"

"Well, screw Antony, and that bratty little helper of his. Octavian, or whoever," said another voice, also male.

" _Bobby_ ," said the boy who seemed in command.

"I'm just saying, I don't see why the gods would tell us about this one recruit who's supposedly hiding out here with all these monsters. Come on, Jason, you have to admit that's not normal."

"There _are_ gazillions of monsters out here," said the boy with the deep voice, Michael.

"Maybe they're hunting her and she can't get to camp," the girl, Gwen, reasoned.

"What makes you think it's a girl?" asked Michael.

There was a pause in which Reyna could practically see Gwen shrug. "I just feel that any boy would have gotten themselves caught or run right to the tunnel by now."

There was an uproar as her male companions protested. Reyna decided that now was as good a time as any to stand up.

The scouting party, or whatever they were, was formed by only the four people. Or kids. Honestly, the oldest one, the girl Gwen, was probably fifteen, and the youngest, the boy who sounded like Bobby, was maybe twelve. All of them were decked out from head-to-toe in solid gold armor, which Reyna assumed was actually Imperial Gold and not regular, mortal gold. Gwen and a tall, broad-shouldered boy who, from a quick guess, Reyna assumed was Michael, carried shields and had swords at their hips. The one facing Michael, Bobby, had a spear. So did the boy next to him. That boy was the only one who saw Reyna stand up from her hiding place, and all Reyna properly saw of him before he attacked was a pair of wide, startled, and electric blue eyes.

His spear was suddenly a sword and it was coming at her from the side. Reyna ducked with centimeters to spare and, pivoting on her heel, planted a solid kick in the blue-eyed boy's chest. He stumbled back. The two other boys were turning towards them at this point, shouting, readying their weapons, until the girl Gwen gave a whistle so loud it would have made Reyna's fourth grade teacher proud.

Everyone froze, including Reyna, who gave her best effort at staring down all four of them simultaneously. She didn't relax her stance and didn't soften her gaze. It seemed to be working. Bobby and Michael were backing up slowly, and the blue-eyed one, Jason, had a hand to his chest plate and was staring at her in stunned silence.

"Jason, you almost took the head off of her," said Gwen irritably. She was clearly the oldest and shouldered her way between Michael and Bobby. She didn't extend a hand but gave Reyna a nod of acknowledgement. "You aren't a monster, are you?"

Reyna regarded Gwen warily. "Are you?"

Gwen seemed to take that to mean 'no' and handed her shield to Bobby. "Give me your hand."

Reyna didn't move. She was keeping one eye on the group of three in front of her and one on Jason, who was still hunched over to one side.

"Come on, if we were monsters we'd have killed you already," Gwen reasoned impatiently. When Reyna still didn't move, she added, "I suppose you've met Lupa?"

Something in Reyna's eyes must have been confirmation, because Gwen smiled. It was a warm smile, for someone who'd been cold seconds before. "We've all trained with her. Come on. Give me your hand. You can trust me."

Warily, Reyna extended her hand to Gwen. The older girl moved so fast Reyna barely got her hand out of the way in time. All the same, the blade nicked her fingertips and droplets of red blood appeared.

"What the hell!" Reyna exclaimed loudly. She took one menacing step toward the group of three. Michael and Bobby each took three steps back. Gwen held up her hands, looking genuinely apologetic.

"I'm sorry," she said, sounding sincere. "But if you came from Lupa you're looking for our camp, right? We can't lead a monster there. That would be a disaster. So we have to check." When Reyna looked confused, she added, "Monsters don't bleed. You would have disintegrated into dust if you weren't mortal. And you wouldn't have seen the blade if you weren't Roman." Gwen held out a tiny square of what Reyna recognized as ambrosia. She took it slowly. It tasted like a cold _fresa_ piragua, especially one that Mercedes used to sell her. Even the texture was right, and despite it seeming cold, she started to feel wonderfully warm inside.

"Let's get introduced properly, without trying to kill each other," Gwen suggested. She pulled the two boys forward and gestured to Jason. "I'm Gwen. My grandmother is Ceres. This is… well…" She elbowed Michael hard in the ribs.

"I'm Michael Kahale," he said in a low voice. "My mom's Venus." He gave her a hard look, like he was warning her not to judge.

"I'm Bobby," said the smallest boy, almost before Michael was finished. "My dad's Vulcan."

"And I'm Jason," said the blue-eyed boy, stepping closed. He extended a hand, which Reyna shook. "My dad's Jupiter."

"That doesn't make him the boss," Gwen cleared up. "He'd like to be. But I'm the boss."

"Caitlin and Daniel are boss," Bobby muttered, but Gwen ignored him.

"I'm Reyna," Reyna said, relaxing the last bit and looking at Gwen without hostility. "My mother's Bellona."

There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Bobby whistled. "Well, that makes you boss."

"Be quiet, Bobby," Michael said, milliseconds before Jason said the same thing.

"I… wow. A child of Bellona. She hasn't had a child in… decades." Gwen looked thunderstruck. Reyna wondered if she should bring up Hylla for maximum effect. She decided against it. She had set that part of her life behind her for now.

"You should probably come back to camp with us," Gwen said. "If you want to, of course," she added hastily.

"That's why I'm here," Reyna pointed out. Every member of the scouting party seemed to let out an inaudible sigh of relief. With a clanking of metal and rustling of undergrowth, they were off.

 **A/N: I know that Michael isn't in the Fifth Cohort in BoO, but let's pretend he got a major promotion sometime in the next few years, probably because of a quest involving a drakon that was barreling toward the camp border that he almost single-handedly stopped.**


	20. All Roads Lead

**A/N: Ha! I lied.** ** _This_** **is the second-to-last chapter. Or maybe I didn't, because the next one's an epilogue… it'll be a great epilogue, though, so stick around for it.**

New Rome was amazing.

The city nestled in the valley was like something out of an old photograph. There were no asphalt-paved roads clogged with cars belching noxious fumes, no massively tall buildings, no Apple devices; the roofs were made from clay tiles (although they were probably sturdier than they looked from a distance) and the roads were paved with cobblestones. If the people living there hadn't been dressed in the same jeans and T-shirts as the rest of the modern world, Reyna would have said that the city was stuck in a period in time some several hundred years ago.

She attracted more than a few sideways glances and open stares. People clustered in groups, some teenagers, some adults, muttering and looking in her direction. The younger children were different. They yelled their opinions loudly to each other until their parents quieted them. Reyna knew that they were curious, but at the same time, she knew that she wasn't much of a mystery. The citizens of New Rome had received many a new demigod in their lifetimes. But they didn't know her name, or her lineage, or how she had gotten there, or what trials she'd had to face, and that, she reasoned, made them curious.

The scouting party had led her through the Caldecott Tunnel and into the valley, then across the Little Tiber and down the path to the city proper. People had begun to follow them. They were teenagers in armor, mostly, legionnaires who had abandoned or been excused from their training to come and gawk at her. She didn't appreciate it.

They came to a halt outside of a large marble building that looked a lot like the government buildings and monuments Reyna had seen during her incredibly brief visit to Washington D.C. The youngest of the group—Bobby— ran up to the massive front doors and heaved one open just enough for him to slip through. He reappeared seconds later, closely followed by a girl in full armor and a purple cloak, and behind her a boy, dressed in the same odd fashion. Heaving the doors open more, another boy followed, this one in a traditional white toga over a purple T-shirt, and behind him came the last person. A slim, blonde boy, with hair and eyes the same color as Jason's, weaseled his way in between the two who had exited in front of him. For someone with the same basic features as Jason, he could not have been more different. This boy was cold and aloof, despite being not only the shortest and the youngest but also the weakest of the four. The two in armor were clearly the leaders. They stood the straightest, held their heads up, and met everyone's eyes. Gwen approached them, but before she could speak, the boy in the toga beat her to it.

"This is the new recruit?"

Gwen nodded, and the eyes of the boy in the toga and the two in armor lit up. The thin boy at the back narrowed his gaze, frowning at Reyna. Reyna ignored him. He didn't look terribly important and therefore he currently wasn't worth her time.

" _Ave,_ " said the girl in armor, stepping forward. Reyna instinctively knew what the Latin meant; _hail_. Uncertain of what the proper response to this would be, she nodded, then realized she probably should have spoken when the blonde boy smirked. "I'm Caitlin," she continued. "Daughter of Mars. This is my co-praetor, Daniel."

"See?" Bobby muttered quietly. "Boss." Daniel frowned at him. He was more imposing than his female counterpart, standing with arms crossed and a frown on his face while Caitlin played Good Cop.

"I'm Reyna," Reyna replied. "Daughter of Bellona." It didn't feel weird, introducing herself as the daughter of someone else instead of as her own self. Lupa had always referred to Reyna that way, like she held no merit as a person without name-dropping her mother.

Caitlin, Daniel, and the two other boys, as well as most of the surrounding crowd, murmured in amazement. The boy in the toga turned to Daniel and said, "See? I told you it would be worth the extra effort."

"Shut up, Casey," Daniel said. Then, to Reyna, "Do you have any siblings?"

Reyna seriously considered telling them about Hylla. About the sister she had left so that she could start her own life. But she reconsidered. She remembered how the Amazons had nearly ignored her for Hylla because Hylla was older and more powerful. They hadn't even given Reyna a chance.

"None that are coming."

She could see the praetors turning over that information, clearly wanting to question her but also not wanting to drive her away or force her to talk about something painful. "Alright," Caitlin said. And no more questions were asked about Hylla. "Welcome to the Legion."


	21. Ave, Praetor (Epilogue)

**A/N: 20 chapters and 3 months later, here we are! The last chapter!**

 **A/N A/N: for those who care (and I do, because I take Latin) 'ave' is pronounced 'ah-way' and 'praetor' is 'prae-tohr'.**

The air was getting crisper and the sun was shorter and shorter lived. Pumpkins adorned windows and front steps, those with faces showing where families with children lived, and those remaining intact denoting the homes of elderly couples who saw no reason to deface the fruits. There were hay bales on street corners and orange and brown ribbons on the lamp posts, mixing unpleasantly with the purple and gold of the Roman banners.

Reyna watched children talking excitedly about what they'd dress up as for Halloween, trying not to grin at their indecision. She had dressed up for ten Halloweens. The only ones she could remember, she had been a skeleton, a nurse, a witch, a cat (Hylla had repeatedly sworn that no one had ever looked cuter than seven-year-old Reyna in a cat costume), and a pilot. The last one had been for her father, who had flown planes in the Air Force before being deployed in Iraq. He had not seemed to notice; but then, she remembered, even then he had been beginning to slip away from them. Not physically, but mentally.

She hadn't dressed up for Halloween since coming to Camp Jupiter. Her first year, she had been brand new. The second year, she had been on a quest with Jason to Charleston, and her third year, she had been campaigning for praetorship. Now that she had secured it, however, she had no reason not to look like a fool on Halloween. And she really didn't want to.

"Reyna! Hey, Rey!"

Reyna paused at the Pomerian Line as Jason came sprinting down the steps of the Senate House and fell in with her. The blonde-haired blue-eyed son of Jupiter hadn't changed much in the three odd years she'd known him. He was taller now, of course, and his jaw was more defined, and he had a mischievous sparkle in his eyes, and his hair shone gold— but Reyna didn't really notice all that. She didn't. Not at all. Never. Mostly.

"So," Jason said, fixing his purple cloak, which had been blown askew in his mad dash to reach his co-praetor, "D'you know what you're gonna dress up as yet?"

"What a presumptive opening," Reyna remarked, continuing her walk back to the principia, Jason beside her. A group of girls probably about ten years old pointed at the two of them and giggled. She pretended not to notice. Jason was perfectly oblivious.

"What, you aren't going to dress up?" He looked horrified. "That's the whole fun of it! They don't give you candy if you don't dress up!"

"I am not going to waste an evening intruding in other people's houses to beg for candy," Reyna established firmly. "Besides, no one hands out jellybeans."

"Reyna, they _ask_ you to take candy from them," Jason pointed out. "You can go with Bobby and Gwen and me, Dakota's coming, probably Alice, too—"

"I am not dealing with Dakota after three hours of pure sugar consumption," Reyna argued. She noticed with a kind of satisfactory pleasure that Jason suddenly looked rather hesitant about his plans. He clearly hadn't thought them through.

"I'm going to be Superman," He said, ignoring Reyna's disapproving scoff. "You could be, like, um… Okay, I can't think of any woman superheroes right now, but you could get away with anything. Seriously."

"I dress up for my job every day," Reyna pointed out sardonically, gesturing to her armor and cloak.

"Yeah, but this is dressing up that's fun and without fifty pounds of metal… Oh, you could be a princess! Or… not…" Jason finished feebly as Reyna sent him a look to freeze him in place. "What about a pirate?"

"I've met pirates, they're barbaric."

"But you could get, like, an eyepatch and a stuffed parrot… no? Okay, how about a soldier or something?"

"Jason, if I went as a soldier it'd end up being some skimpy thing with a neck that ended at my waist and a skirt three inches long. That's scandalous for a normal person, never mind a leader with a reputation to uphold." They reached the entrance to the fort and nodded to the two centurions from the third and second cohort who were on their way out.

"If you wanted something scandalous, dress up as a Greek," Jason suggested, grinning broadly like this was some extremely clever comment. "Octavian would mount your head on a pike, but I'd love to see his face first…"

"I had to warn some girl yesterday about dressing up as a ghost," Reyna remarked. "I can't see the Lares being too thrilled about that. There's always someone, though."

Jason nodded in agreement. He continued throwing out costume ideas until they came to the doors of the principia, where he was distracted by something else.

"Wha's that?" he asked, pointing to the slim white envelope Reyna had begun to carefully open. "I didn't get any mail." The last part was indignant.

"It's from my sister, you dolt. Not everything comes in equal shares." Reyna scanned the brief letter (shockingly brief, seeing as she and Hylla hadn't spoken in over ten months). Hylla was doing well as queen. She hoped Reyna was okay. Blah blah blah. She had enclosed a check for—and Reyna couldn't believe it— an absurdly large amount of money that Reyna could barely begin to fathom. Being queen paid well, apparently.

There was a short paragraph that was almost a post-script; _I've been thinking about what you said and decided that you were right. This is half of what that car cost. Cassidy what's-her-face. You should cough up and pay the other half._

Reyna rummaged in her desk drawer with Jason watching intently and discovered her hitherto-unused checkbook. It had taken her three years, but Hylla had come to her senses. Cass would get repaid in full.

Reyna realized that Jason was leaning across the desk to see what the check was for. She stashed it away quickly. "Excuse me!"

Jason threw up his hands in defeat. "Okay, okay! I'll… go get us some coffee or something. It looks like it'll be a long night, so we should start getting hyper now." He gave the stacks of paper on their desk a meaningful look.

Reyna shook her head. "No you won't. The last time you 'went out for coffee', you were gone two hours and I had to track you down and drag your sorry butt back here."

"It won't happen again."

"Hm."

"It won't!"

"Hm."

"I swear."

"Hm."

"Come on, Rey, I can't do all this without a coffee!" Jason gave her his signature puppy-dog-eyed look that made Reyna melt just enough.

"Okay," she conceded. When Jason proceeded to jump up and do a victory dance, she added, "But if you disappear on me again, I'll have to assume that you've defected to join the Greeks."

Jason laughed and, spinning on his heel, hurried out of the principia. Reyna watched her co-praetor go before bending over her checkbook again.

It would be eight months before she saw him again.

* * *

 _ **Regina Aeterna**_ **means 'Eternal Queen' in Latin**

 **Thank you so much if you stuck with me until the end! Thank you to everyone who reviewed. Every time I got one, it made my day. Thanks also if you favorited my story. This is my first multi-chapter fic and I think it went pretty well. Because I didn't do a disclaimer in the beginning... I think... well, if you thought I owned this, you should know better. I own nothing but this computer.**

 **Signing out for now,**

 **ThereBeDragons17**


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